All the Ways Congress is Taking on the Tech Industry

In 2020, lawmakers have lots of ideas about how to regulate tech companies. New bills are introduced every day, creating a sea of regulatory threats that’s difficult to keep straight as time goes on. A majority of these measures will never make their way into a committee hearing, and even fewer will be signed into law. But taken as a whole, they give us a sense of what a major tech regulation bill might look like this Congress. And as the 2020 election season takes off, that picture is more urgent than ever.

• Crafting a federal data privacy framework: The biggest regulatory target is all of the data tech companies collect from their users, so many legislators are pushing for a far-reaching federal law to regulate personal data, akin to Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 
• Updating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Some lawmakers fear that the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) isn’t tough enough to take on Big Tech’s abuses over children’s data.
• Rules for Digital Advertising. The Honest Ads Act (S 1356) was first introduced in 2017, but the discussion surrounding political ads has evolved tremendously in the three years since it was proposed.
• Deception and Interoperability: Sen Mark Warner (D-VA) has spearheaded a handful of efforts to get other lawmakers talking about tech regulation over the past few years, including measures that ensure platforms aren’t designed in deceptive or anti-competitive ways. In April 2019, Sen Warner sponsored the DETOUR Act with Sen Deb Fischer (R-NE) to target so-called “dark patterns” — deceptive practices used to convince users to engage with them in ways that benefit the company.