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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 Insights Association, the leading nonprofit organization representing the insights industry, celebrated Data Privacy Day by calling once again for a comprehensive U.S. consumer data privacy law to protect consumers, as well as market research and analytics.

A new policy statement from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) encourages organizing of independent contractors into labor unions, just like employees, and would include research subjects who receive any form of incentive for participating in market research studies.

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...

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.