A House and Senate bipartisan data privacy bill would let users opt out of targeted ads and sue internet companies that improperly sell their data, and more
To provide consumers with foundational data privacy rights … Msmash / Slashdot : Lawmakers Reignite Battle for Federal Privacy Law Ben Brody / Protocol : Congress is actually taking a go at a real privacy bill Rebecca Kern / Politico : Bipartisan draft bill breaks stalemate on federal data privacy negotiations Tweets: Seth Miller / @sethmills21 : the audacity....after decimating an entire economy [screenshot of prompt to turn on Apple's Personalized Ads] Rep. Frank Pallone / @frankpallone : Yesterday I announced a bipartisan agreement with other leaders that will give Americans more control over their personal data. It strikes a meaningful balance critical to moving national data privacy legislation through Congress. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Rebecca Kern / @rebeccamkern : Scoop - @FrankPallone, @cathymcmorris and @SenatorWicker have a draft federal privacy bill wherein they've compromised on preemption and a limited private right of action. They've shared it with industry and privacy advocacy groups.for @POLITICOPro. https://subscriber.politicopro.com/ ... @can : I wish Apple didn't decimate that economy but utterly destroyed it https://twitter.com/... @0xfr_ : @1NDi60 i was always too cynical to think of their privacy push as anything other then hurting their biggest competitors, surprised that google and meta didn't lobby for right to repair in response CathyMcMorrisRodgers / @cathymcmorris : I'm leading with @SenatorWicker and @FrankPallone on a strong national privacy framework to protect Americans' data & personal information. Read the discussion draft of our comprehensive privacy and data security framework. ↓ https://republicans-energycommerce.hous e.gov/ ... Rep. Frank Pallone / @frankpallone : Pleased to join bipartisan House and Senate leaders to announce our data privacy discussion draft. This critical milestone represents the best opportunity to pass a federal data privacy law to give Americans more control over their personal data. https://energycommerce.house.gov/ ... Ben Winters / @wenbinters : @Cyn_K yes, i believe thats right. especially b/c algorithm is only used in context of algos and civil rights section (207) of this so based on decisions 1 fear is algos “informing” decision-making or playing a non-binding part could be argued as not even “facilitating” and skateby Cynthia Khoo / @cyn_k : @Wenbinters Thanks for highlighting! Does that mean... if an algorithm does not make /facilitate a decision or facilitate human decision-making wrt covered data, then under this Act, it's not considered an algorithm at all? I guess that's one way to prevent unintentional overbreadth...? @appleworkers : Speaking of legislation and laws, @tim_cook, make sure @Apple doesn't violate the #NLRA @NLRB WORKERS' RIGHT TO ORGANIZE! #UnionizeApple #OrganizeApple #AppleUnion #UnionStrong #AppleTogether #AppleToo #Apple #AAPL $AAPL https://twitter.com/... Ben Buchanan / @01core_ben : I do admire how brazenly Tim is willing to lie. Monday he's destroying millions of small businesses to steal ad share, Tuesday he's turning over 100% of user data in China to the CCP, Wednesday he's playing the role of knight in armor, here to save the world from dangerous “ads” https://twitter.com/... Matthew Kobach / @mkobach : The power of framing: Apple asked their users if they wanted to protect their “privacy” from third-party apps, and to opt out of data tracking. But when it benefited Apple, they re-framed it as an option for “personalized ads”. Same exact concept, framed two different ways. https://twitter.com/... Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic : @Mechani_Kong @sethmills21 Decimation is an involuntary reduction by 10%. Apple more that decimated the independent ad economies of Unity, Facebook, and others - see Unity's oblique shareholder disclosure on the topic. https://en.wikipedia.org/... Bill D'Alessandro / @billda : @tobi Unbelievable. But actually, totally predictable. I cannot believe Apple has gotten off with zero blowback on this entire privacy charade. So many small businesses as collateral damage and somehow it's Facebook's fault. @tobi : Still, very decent of them to ask. Let's use this language everywhere! @tobi : Apple going full Russel Conjugation here I personalize, you track across apps, they invade your privacy. https://twitter.com/... @fbbagholder : Get out of here [screenshot of prompt to turn on Apple's Personalized Ads] Blake E. Reid / @blakereid : There are also some exceptions where the law yields to some of the provisions of sector-specific laws like GLBA, HIPAA, FERPA, FCRA, etc. Will take deep dive by experts to understand those interactions. 3/ Blake E. Reid / @blakereid : But onto the real action: the default presumption is preemption of state laws. That's bad news; literally any state law that nominally strays into the extremely broad subject matter of this bill and implementing regs is by default subject to a federal preemption fight. 4/ https://twitter.com/... Blake E. Reid / @blakereid : Of course, there are an extremely broad set of exceptions. Overall, these introduce a ton of ambiguity to the statue. Most notably, preemption doesn't apply to “civil rights laws,” with no further elaboration on what that means! What privacy law is not a civil rights law? 5/ Blake E. Reid / @blakereid : Quickly, the federal preservation section is confusing. The reference to the very specific breach provision in the CPNI rules stands in stark contrast to the broad savings clause for other federal laws. Are there other limiting authorizations? Will need to analyze carefully. 2/ https://twitter.com/... Ben Winters / @wenbinters : for any fellow dweebs interested in the algo harm parts of the federal privacy bill that just dropped — it's section 207 starting on page 32 here: https://energycommerce.house.gov/ ... and the whole bill section by section is here: https://energycommerce.house.gov/ ... and their definition of algo: https://twitter.com/... @thoward37 : Terrible definition of an “algorithm”... but it's true that it's often used this way in common speech, so I can see why they did that. Would be cool if they just used an accurate term... Or maybe understood the technology even a little bit before trying to make laws about it. https://twitter.com/... @swodinsky : mfw getting to the fifth page of said draft and seeing carveouts for adtech fuckery, employee surveillance, and telemarketers who use ur public info to target u with offers for cars u can't drive (in that order) https://www.commerce.senate.gov/ ... https://twitter.com/... Amol Deshpande / @amolumd : Although a federal privacy bill is much-needed, this draft offers only the most basic consumer protections, exempts “de-identified” data, and doesn't cover ethical data use issues... I would rather it doesn't pass as is and preempt the much more comprehensive state regulations... https://twitter.com/... @swodinsky : @WillOremus i honestly think it's bc this bill does a really really good job at maintaining the current privacy status quo while *also* codifying exemptions for law enforcement/employers. ofc moderates love it, they're getting what we already have https://twitter.com/... Mike Swift / @swiftstories : Apple CEO @tim_cook comes out in support of bipartisan federal #privacy legislation talks, but you have to wonder where @SenatorCantwell is on this...as @mlexclusive noted in today's coverage, without her this probably doesn't mean much. https://content.mlex.com/... https://twitter.com/... Tim Cook / @tim_cook : We've long needed comprehensive federal privacy legislation and I'm pleased to see the growing momentum behind it. At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right, and we will keep working to support the strongest privacy bill possible. Cristiano Lima / @viacristiano : NEW: House & Senate leaders unveiled a draft privacy bill in a breakthrough for the long-stalled talks, but major hurdles remain with time ticking away & key holdouts https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... w/ @jacobbogage Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : The proof that Apple deliberately designed ATT to harm mobile ads of competitors like Google & Facebook under the guise of privacy is that when it comes to their system they call it “Personalized Ads” and not “Tracking”. https://twitter.com/... Will Oremus / @willoremus : The new privacy bill is interesting politically. It has support from moderates in both parties but not the ones who care most about privacy (who see it as entrenching a broken status quo) or the ones who really don't care about consumer protection at all. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Ari Ezra Waldman / @ariezrawaldman : Another gift to industry. https://twitter.com/... Joe Duball / @jduballreports : While we were all sleeping..... Got a few months to solidify or let it all crumble before Wicker likely bows out of Commerce and takes the GOP willingness to negotiate follows him out the door. https://twitter.com/... Margaret Harding McGill / @margarethmcgill : For those who want to go deeper, here's the full discussion draft and a section-by-section review: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/ ... & https://energycommerce.house.gov/ ... https://twitter.com/... Margaret Harding McGill / @margarethmcgill : NEW: Key lawmakers are out with a bipartisan draft privacy bill, showing signs of life in the long-running Washington debate over federal privacy legislation https://www.axios.com/... Avi Asher-Schapiro / @aaschapiro : It looks like Democrats & Republicans in the House came to a compromise on a national privacy bill—with a limited private right of action (a Democrat priority), & federal preemption of more aggressive state laws (a GOP priority). https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... John Davisson / @johndavisson : There'll be a lot to chew over in this bill, but hard to overstate the significance of a bipartisan framework on comprehensive privacy legislation(!) https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Surveillance advertising industry, including Facebook and Google, is also desperate to preempt California's updated law before it takes effect in January significantly limiting their tracking of all of us. This will be interesting to watch. https://twitter.com/... Evan Greer / @evan_greer : 👀 will have to see details of the bill but it would sure be nice if we could get meaningful action on privacy AND tech antitrust this Congress https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The bipartisan draft put consumer control, private lawsuits over improper data sales, and federal preemption into one negotiating package, with lawmakers circulating it to industry and privacy groups. Apple’s support for comprehensive federal legislation added a prominent technology-company voice to that momentum.
The proposal’s path did not end with its release: a House panel later advanced the American Data Privacy and Protection Act by a 53–2 vote, while lawmakers returned in 2024 with a new American Privacy Rights Act draft featuring a data-broker registry.
First-order effects
- Internet companies would need to provide an opt-out from targeted advertising and face consumer lawsuits for improper sales of personal data if the draft became law.
- California and other states would face a federal-preemption framework with specified exceptions, shifting the compliance baseline toward the bill’s national rules.
Second-order effects
- Adtech companies would have to adapt targeting and data-sale practices to an opt-out right that users could enforce through litigation, raising the value of data gathered under clearer permissions.
- Industry and privacy advocates receiving the draft become central to defining which preemption exceptions and enforcement provisions survive as the bill moves through Congress.
Third-order effects
- The later House-panel vote and the 2024 privacy-bill revival indicate that a federal privacy framework remains a recurring route for reconciling consumer rights, ad targeting, and state-law differences.
- If Congress ultimately enacts a national standard, data brokers and internet platforms would be governed more by explicit rights and enforcement mechanisms than by a patchwork of state requirements.
The trend: US privacy policymaking is repeatedly converging on national consumer data rights, limits on targeted advertising, and tighter oversight of data sales.