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As summer gives way to fall, U.S. policymakers are giving the insights industry plenty to keep an eye on. This month, the Insights Association backed a new California law clarifying the legality of alcohol taste-testing research, pushed back against proposed changes to the 2030 Census and delays in critical census data, supported legislation to curb abusive privacy lawsuits, and tracked a fresh wave of state privacy and artificial intelligence proposals affecting insights businesses across the c...

September brought interesting developments in advocacy issues facing the U.S. insights industry, including a gaggle of new state laws on data privacy and artificial intelligence (AI), the business community coalescing to defend the American Community Survey (ACS), a critical privacy decision in a European courtroom, a changing human resources landscape, and other legislation.

As summer wound down, the legal, legislative and regulatory issues facing the insights industry continued to wind up, with a ton of new privacy laws, regulations and court cases across the U.S., new laws and legal challenges for artificial intelligence in the insights context, President Trump calling out the decennial census, and more rules and compliance guidance for accessibility online. Let's dive in...

June brought lots of sizzling policy developments for the insights industry -- some promising, others challenging. Thankfully, the Insights Association was right in the thick of it. Let’s look at some wins on privacy issues and political polling, a troubling GDPR case in Europe, lots of new guidance on privacy, AI, HR, and email laws, developments on indirect costs in federally-funded research, and more.

The insights industry began the first month of 2025 with an eye on a comprehensive federal privacy law, the potential organizing of research subjects into labor unions, legal guidance on artificial intelligence in Oregon, and how insights firms should respond to legal subpoenas for research-related information.

The heat was rising on legislative, regulatory and compliance issues for the insights industry in June, as the Insights Association focused on: federal privacy legislation; pending compliance hurdles as new state and federal laws took effect; a new AI law in Colorado; and a federal bill that would require tax withholding for research subjects receiving participant incentives.

As the insights industry closes out 2023 on the calendar, the Insights Association looked back at our advocacy wins and losses on various consumer data privacy issues, and taxes, while checking in on legislation, regulation, and laws at the state and federal level on privacy, taxes, the independent contractor status of research subjects, and artificial intelligence.

While temperatures are starting to dip, concerns still simmered in September for the insights industry as we dealt with more new state privacy laws, burgeoning regulation of AI, and other pressing advocacy issues.

As we close out an intense summer for the insights industry, the Insights Association has been focused on a wide variety of policy issues, including: the launch of a new program for legally transferring European Union personal data to the U.S.; looming worries in complying with state comprehensive consumer data privacy laws that came into effect on July 1, and newly-passed state laws in Florida and Tennessee; the latest developments in compliance concerns and regulation of artificial intelligenc...

As America readies for the grand finale of another football season, we are just beginning our year-long campaign of advocacy across the country, focused so far on privacy legislation at the state and federal level, proposed taxes on insights companies, new HR laws, and potential restrictions on exit polling. Let's dive in...