Kroger's proposed $1.65 billion acquisition of Giant Eagle could expand not only its grocery footprint but also a broad surveillance apparatus built around customer data and Flock cameras, according to a new report from the American Economic Liberties Project. The advocacy group, which pushes for competition policy reforms, is asking the Federal Trade Commission and Ohio's attorney general to try to block the deal. The report argues that the transaction deserves scrutiny beyond the usual concerns about reduced competition and higher prices.
The group warns that the merger would concentrate customer surveillance in a single company at a moment when Americans are especially uneasy about technologies such as Flock cameras and surveillance pricing. It points to the way the deal could significantly reduce grocery options in places like Columbus, Ohio, as well as to Kroger's buying patterns and incentives. In the report's framing, routine purchases would increasingly come with the prospect of being scanned, tracked and profiled, and each store Kroger buys would enlarge its data and surveillance apparatus.
Similar privacy questions came up during Kroger's earlier attempt to merge with Albertsons, a much larger deal that courts blocked in late 2024 after the FTC and state attorneys general challenged it. The report contends that the smaller Giant Eagle deal still merits examination on the same grounds. It urges the FTC and Ohio's attorney general to seek to block the merger.
Experts have predicted the regulators might not take that step, according to the report. One reason is the relatively small size of the deal compared with Albertsons. Another is the Trump administration's more open approach to settlement deals than that of the prior administration.
The report lands ahead of a midterm election largely defined by affordability issues, a backdrop that has made surveillance pricing and camera-based tracking particularly salient for US consumers. For a technology audience, the central claim is that a grocery transaction could function as a data acquisition, adding storefronts and the systems that monitor them to one company's holdings.
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