The rule
No price is set from an individual guest's personal data.
- Prices may change with dates, demand, or how far ahead you book.
- Discounts are allowed if they are published and anyone who meets the stated condition can get them. Examples: membership, age, residency, military service, being a past guest, belonging to a named group, or holding a promo code, as (d) defines them.
- You claim a discount yourself, by choosing it and saying you qualify. The software never applies it automatically from data about you, such as your location, device, browsing or booking history.
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What the conditions mean:
- Membership:
- counts only if anyone can join on the same published terms.
- Named group:
- an organization the guest belongs to, such as a club, rally, employer or association. It is never a category the campground or software defines from data about guests. A group rate counts as published if every member of the group sees it before payment.
- Promo code:
- counts only if the code and its terms are on a public page, or it is sent on the same terms to everyone on a list the guest chose to join. A code sent to people picked using data about them (location, device, browsing, booking or spending history) doesn't count.
- Past guest:
- having stayed at this campground, or at a group of campgrounds that shares one published loyalty program anyone can join, at least a stated number of times within a stated period. The discount and the threshold are published, the same for everyone who meets them, and never based on how much the guest spent. The guest claims it. The campground may check only its own records to confirm it. The software company never uses a guest's history at other campgrounds to offer or confirm it.
- A one-off price that staff set in person or by phone isn't "set from personal data," unless it uses data the system holds about you. Checking the system to confirm you qualify for a published discount you claimed is allowed.
What this looks like
Prices can change with dates, demand, or how far ahead you book. But two people searching the same site, for the same dates, at the same moment, see the same price, whatever their ZIP code, booking history, or device.
A veteran discount that's listed for everyone to see is fine.
Why
Software companies are selling demand pricing to campgrounds, and campers have asked how to avoid "surveillance pricing." No evidence was found that it's used today; this rule keeps it that way.
How it's checked
Testers check the software company and the campground separately. Each gets its own result.
Software company
Pass
- Its pricing documentation says personal data isn't used to set prices or apply discounts.
- Paired searches with no discount claimed match (Appendix A, T5).
Fail
- The documentation allows it.
- A discount is applied without the guest claiming it.
- Its tools send promo codes to guests picked using data about them.
- A price difference repeats on a second search.
Campground
Pass
- Every discount it offers is published with its condition.
- Its settings apply none automatically.
Fail
- It offers unpublished, profile-based prices.
- It sends promo codes to guests picked using data about them.
- It defines a "group" from guest data.
Not met
- Software limitation: its software applies discounts automatically and can't be set not to.
- Evidence
- Public · Settings · Booking (paired searches)
- Source
- S12 (first part) · G9 · Evidence E6. Parts (b)–(e) clarify S12.