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As leaves accumulated and election season reached a crescendo, the Insights Association welcomed the advancement of a helpful kids’ privacy bill in Congress, dug into yet more new state privacy laws, advocated on census funding and policy concerns, and feasted on other policy issues of interest to the insights industry.

Spooky season is here, but thanks to the Insights Association the insights industry had the upper hand on the legislative and legal ghouls and goblins in October as we tackled bills and laws on privacy, data security, artificial intelligence, and more.

Cool winds are blowing through DC and the state capitols, but the action in September remained hot on multiple policy fronts of interest to the insights industry. The Insights Association helped to snag wins against a tax on advertising research and a requirement for opt out preference signals, while also delving into pending legislation and new state and federal laws in data privacy, advancing legislation on artificial intelligence, new guidance for insights professionals using synthetic resear...

A provision that would have taxed advertising, explicitly including ad measurement and effectiveness research, was stripped out of the Governor’s big tax bill, Nebraska L.B. 1.

Summer may be winding down, but public policy disputes impacting the insights industry continued apace in August, including: new state privacy laws; new laws and guidance on artificial intelligence; and a key court decision on non-compete agreements in employment contracts. The Insights Association also managed a win on kids’ privacy legislation in the U.S. Senate and led the charge against a legislative proposal that would ruin the decennial Census and the American Community Survey (ACS).

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently sent a reminder that “hashing” personal data is not as protective as companies may think.

Business groups warned U.S. House leaders of the dangers from a provision in federal funding legislation that would “would crater response rates to all Census Bureau surveys and result in the decennial census and the American Community Survey (ACS) counting barely a third of the country,” while having “negative ripple effects across the U.S. economy.”

The U.S. Senate just approved legislation, supported by the leading nonprofit association for the insights industry, that would regulate the design and operations of many for-profit online social platforms if they knowingly interact with minors 16 years of age or younger.

Despite all the political turmoil in the U.S., the Insights Association remained focused on advocacy on our bread-and-butter policy issues in July, including heated fights over census funding, delays in federal noncompete rules, proposed portable benefits for independent contractors (that could include research subjects), more AI legislation, and a win on some IA-supported legislation in Congress.

In response to a request for information from a Senate committee leader, the Insights Association, the leading nonprofit association for the insights industry, urged that any potential regime of portable benefits for independent contractors should not apply to research subjects.