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As temperatures rose, so did the threats and opportunities for the insights industry in advocacy during May, ranging from three new comprehensive state privacy laws, advancing regulation of artificial intelligence, compliance concerns with state sales taxes, jousting over the Census Household Panel, restrictions on high-end incentives for research subjects, state legislation to ban non-competes, and a new Maryland law restricting most telephone calls for research purposes.

Privacy legislation and regulation kicked into gear during February at the state and federal level. The feds are proposing to prohibit all non-compete agreements, and changes are on the table for Kentucky’s new tax on insights services. That is just a taste of what’s been happening this past month in advocacy impacting the insights industry.

Temperatures may be cooling as the calendar turns to autumn, but legislative issues are heating up as lawmakers get back to work following summer breaks. Here are some of the key issues we're engaged with at the national and state level on your behalf...

Since our last Fighting for You, the Insights Association has been charging full-steam into debates over consumer privacy and data security at the state, federal and trans-national levels; opposing a new project at the Census Bureau that would compete directly against the insights industry; scrutinizing Congressional legislation and possible Securities and Exchange Commission regulation that could treat research subjects like employees, instead of independent contractors; and advocating against ...

MRA convinced a state legislator to exempt respondent incentives for marketing research from his legislation, which would have banned most payments from pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers to health care professionals.

MRA scored several recent victories in the ongoing fight against legislation to require public reporting of survey research incentives for health care practitioners or that ban them outright. MRA recently helped to convince legislators in Maryland and Rhode Island to withdraw their bills and helped to defeat legislation in Mississippi.