McDonald's hit with lawsuit alleging AI pricing system violates antitrust laws
bgwalker
McDonald's (MCD) is facing a proposed nationwide class-action lawsuit in federal court in Chicago, alleging that the fast-food giant illegally coordinates menu prices across its franchised and company-owned restaurants using an AI-powered pricing system.
The lawsuit, filed on Friday, said the company violated US antitrust law by conspiring with independent franchisees to fix prices using algorithms trained on nonpublic data.
Reuters reported last week that McDonald’s pricing engine uses machine-learning algorithms to continually analyze data from millions of daily transactions across its nearly 14,000 restaurants.
The lawsuit cited the article, which said other fast-food companies are also turning to AI to help with pricing and other operations. "Independent businesses must set their prices independently," the lawsuit said.
McDonald’s (MCD), in a statement on Monday, called the allegations speculative and uninformed. "AI does not set the price of a Big Mac or any other menu item," the company said, according to the news agency. It said franchisees make their own pricing decisions, and that the use of pricing recommendation tools and analytics is widespread across industries.
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