Edit: I misremembered the text, “This practice, like other forms of bait and switch advertising, is prohibited by existing statutes” This law will probably make enforcement easier because the law is now more specific.
Under California law it’s not a bait and switch to advertise a base price before fees. That’s why they passed this law. The text of the bill mentions the fact that this sort of pricing did not violate California’s bait and switch laws prior to its introduction.
This law does not ban hidden fees. There are plenty of hidden fees that this law does nothing about.
This law makes it illegal to advertise a price that doesn’t account for included fees. If a concert ticket is $40 with a $20 “service” fee, this law would require the tickets to be listed as $60 tickets. This law does not require taxes to be included in advertised prices, sales tax is added after the advertised price.
This law only prohibits misleading advertising of pricing, it however does not require disclosure of pricing.
The biggest source of hidden fees is the medical billing. Healthcare costs are nearly all hidden fees because healthcare providers rarely disclose prices in advance. This bill does nothing about that, because if a price is not advertised, this bill does not effect it, and this bill does not require disclosure of pricing in advance.
This bill is an improvement. This bill will reduce misrepresentation of pricing, but it does not actually ban hidden fees outright.
Bill to Ban Hidden Fees in California Signed into Law (oag.ca.gov)