Protecting the Insights Industry

From protecting market research in federal privacy laws and ensuring responsible AI adoption, to preventing unfair government competition, stopping harmful taxes, defending the census, preserving incentives for research participants, and advancing continuing education—the Insights Association is in your corner.

We fight for our members nationwide, monitoring legislation, sharing critical updates, and advocating relentlessly with policymakers at every level.

"In today’s environment, the potential for government overreach makes all that IA is doing so especially critical. A special thank you for all of your hard work and efforts to protect and support our industry. It is really appreciated.”

••• Bill McInturff, Co-founder, Public Opinion Strategies (member since IA’s founding)

Artificial Intelligence

While many of the concepts guiding the use of AI in the insights industry, like the duties of care, transparency, and privacy, are already part of the Insights Association Code of Standards and we already are bound by those concepts in the work we do, AI brings some new considerations and applications. Legislators and regulators have struggled to come up with bounded definitions regarding AI that don’t capture most every process, including simple automated spreadsheets and old-fashioned Bayesian statistical imputation. When they try to set restrictions on systems used for so-called automated decision-making, policymakers sometimes accidentally rope in the processes used to manage research subjects. We advocate for reasonable transparency and disclosure requirements for artificial intelligence, such as making sure people know that content has been generated using AI. IA also urges a risk-based regulatory approach to AI, allowing for the continued development and evolution of AI while pursuing basic protections for circumstances that may pose the potential for actual harm (circumstances that do not relate to insights work).

View Code of Standards

Consumer Privacy

The Insights Association lobbies for comprehensive privacy legislation at the federal level, modeled on the framework we developed with a coalition we helped to found, Privacy for America. It would preempt the growing morass of conflicting state laws ( nearly 20 so far ) and improve the situation for the insights industry in the U.S. Where possible, IA aims to deter state comprehensive privacy legislation in favor of federal action, or at least to moderate the bills and improve how they would treat the insights industry and our ability to collect, analyze and share appropriately protected personal data for purposes of market research and analytics.

Right now, we are working with Congress on the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA), comprehensive legislation that recognizes market research as a permitted purpose, provides some specific protections for audience measurement and other aspects of insights work, but still has a long way to go.

Competitive Sourcing

The insights industry has found itself in competition with the federal government, as the feds have tried to stand up their own online research panel – the Census Household Panel (formerly known as the Ask U.S. Panel) – with the specific intent of competing for business with the private sector. The federal government also seeks to source insights services internally instead of purchasing them for a fraction of the cost on the open market.

In response, the Insights Association seeks to keep the federal government focused on its core necessary responsibilities by lobbying for the Freedom from Government Competition Act. This legislation would significantly reduce taxpayer resources wasted on duplicative (and often failing) enterprises, like the panel project, by requiring the federal government to procure goods & services from the private sector when commercially available, instead of competing with the private sector.

Tax

The Insights Association opposes taxes that would specifically target the insights industry and our work. IA advocates against legislation that would tax the theoretical value of consumer data, data sales, specific kinds of insights work (such as audience measurement ), or the revenues specifically of insights companies, and we fight against attempts to apply state sales taxes to services (absent an insights industry carveout). All such taxes would increase the cost of planning and decision-making in the public and private sectors, disincentivizing the insights essential to economic prosperity.

Taxes specifically aimed at the insights industry and our work don’t just hurt insights companies – they drive up the cost of insights (which degrades decision-making in every industry and at every level).

Healthcare Market Research

Critics of the pharmaceutical and medical device industry’s payments to health care professionals have driven regulation requiring public reporting of payments from such companies to doctors, nurses and other providers or prescribers. Absent exemptions, such requirements usually crater market research with such professionals. Some states have even tried to ban payments altogether.

The Insights Association advocates for the ability to conduct independent market research in the health care space, by exempting participant incentives for market research from such laws and regulations, or to defeat the measures, and we have been generally successful for years. This includes exemptions IA has won for market research in the District of Columbia, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and in the federal Physician Payments Sunshine Act.

Data Security

We also promote legislation (like current laws in Connecticut, Iowa, Ohio, and Utah) that provides an affirmative defense against litigation for companies that abide by the standards and get certified.

ISO 27001 Standards for Data Security

Census

The Insights Association lobbies for the full funding and integrity of the decennial census and the American Community Survey (ACS). Sometimes we even have to lobby simply to keep the ACS in existence .

Accurate data from the 2030 Census and the ongoing ACS (formerly the census “long form”) are the statistical benchmarks necessary for producing statistically representative market research in the United States. These programs are also central to promoting economic growth, guiding the prudent allocation of public and private resources, and sustaining a strong democracy.

Push Polls

A "push poll" -- an advocacy or persuasion call disguised as a poll -- is a particularly deceptive and unethical activity that our industry fights against.

However, the Insights Association opposes legislation and regulation that would require unnecessary disclosures during political and public opinion polls. We support legislation, like a law we helped write and pass in New Hampshire, that properly targets deceptive practices while exempting bona fide political and public opinion research (including message testing).

Incentives For Research Subjects

The insights industry needs laws and regulations that are most likely to recognize that research subjects receiving participant incentives are independent contractors, not employees.

Federal and state labor and tax authorities sometimes misclassify research subjects receiving incentives for participation in market research as employees of the companies conducting the research studies, which can be costly and generally detrimental to insights work.

Some states’ laws/regulations are (inadvertently) so flawed (such as those with an ABC test) that they make it difficult for research subjects to be properly classified as independent contractors. Even attempting to clarify research subjects’ status can go awry, as when California ended up requiring research subjects be paid minimum wage (a law IA helped to fix in 2021). So, IA continues to lobby for treating research subjects receiving any kind of compensation as independent contractors, not employees.

Human Resources

Non-compete Agreements in Employment Contracts

The insights industry needs our workforce working, not sidelined, or spending their resources to fight non-compete agreements in court.

The Insights Association opposes the use of non-compete agreements in employment contracts for all but the most senior employees, unless the employees receive compensation or severance commensurate with the time frame the employees are restricted. Still, the use of non-disclosure agreements or non-solicitation agreements should not be impeded.

While new FTC rules on non-competes are more expansive than we sought, the federal regulator did heed some of our concerns about senior executives and garden leave.

Promoting Continuing Education

The Insights Association advocates for the Freedom to Invest in Tomorrow’s Workforce Act, bipartisan, bicameral federal legislation which would expand qualified expenses under 529 savings plans to include postsecondary training and credentialing, such as licenses and professional certifications and certificates.

By turning college savings accounts into career savings accounts, the Act would provide valuable tax-advantaged resources for families, students and workers – with or without a college degree – who pursue career growth, mid-career changes or pathways that diverge from a typical academic route. Further, it would allow for funds invested in 529 accounts to be used for current and future insights professionals pursuing postsecondary training and certification.