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While northerly climes were frosting over at the tail end of 2024, the Insights Association took a sharp look at the prior year in tax policy, privacy and artificial intelligence, while scoping out President Trump’s new Administration. We also covered an array of privacy, data security, telephone and other legislation and regulatory moves impacting the insights industry in December.

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...

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).

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.”

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.

The first full month of spring brought with it a shiny new federal privacy bill, some developments on AI regulation, a tax win in Nebraska, a new federal ban on noncompetes, advances in preventing the government from competing with the insights industry, legislation moving in Minnesota on exit polling and political opinion research, complicated business payment disputes, and some new developments on competitive sourcing of insights services and the Census Household Panel.

This month, the Insights Association focused on extensive artificial intelligence legislation at the state level, urgent developments in privacy compliance in California and Washington state, new bills on census issues (including one that would kill the ACS), the insights compliance concerns with sales taxes on SaaS and PaaS, and a couple of new telephone-related bills.

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.