ITHome 10/6 news: According to Reuters, McDonald's has been sued in federal court in Chicago in a proposed nationwide class action. The plaintiffs accuse the fast-food company of using an artificial intelligence pricing system to illegally coordinate menu prices across its franchised and company-owned restaurants.
ITHome notes that the lawsuit was filed last Friday local time. The complaint alleges that McDonald's conspired with independent franchisees to manipulate prices using algorithms trained on non-public data, in violation of U.S. antitrust law.
Reuters reported last week that McDonald's pricing engine uses machine learning algorithms to continuously analyze data generated by millions of transactions each day across its nearly 14,000 locations. The lawsuit cites that report, which also mentioned that other fast food companies have begun using artificial intelligence for pricing and other operational work.
The complaint states: "Independently operated businesses must set their own prices for their products."
McDonald's issued a statement on Monday, saying the allegations are speculative and lack a factual basis.
"The price of a Big Mac or any other menu item is not set by artificial intelligence," the company said. McDonald's stated that individual franchisees have pricing decision-making authority, and that pricing recommendation tools and data analysis methods are already widely used across all industries.
In recent years, multiple class action lawsuits have emerged in the United States, with plaintiffs accusing various companies of using algorithms or artificial intelligence to engage in illegal price coordination on hotel rooms, apartment rentals, and other consumer goods.
The plaintiffs' attorney, Lark Turner, said in a statement that McDonald's "is using the massive amounts of data in its hands and its franchise system to squeeze every last penny out of consumers, down to the very last order of fries."
The complaint shows that the plaintiff is an Illinois resident who hopes to launch this class action lawsuit on behalf of a class that could number in the millions of McDonald's consumers.