The NAI’s Statement on President Biden’s Wall Street Journal Op-Ed

“Responsible members of the digital advertising industry share the primary goals President Biden expressed in his article – including protecting children online, establishing national standards for data privacy, and promoting competition and the small businesses that drive American innovation.

“The NAI applauds the President’s call for Congress to work cooperatively to enact a federal law to achieve these objectives. It is imperative that we promote innovation and competition with thoughtful, reasoned legislative approaches that empower small businesses, and avoid policy missteps that actually increase the dominance of large technology companies.  

“The President calls for clear limits on the use of highly personal data. We agree. The NAI has long been a leader in limiting the collection and use of sensitive consumer data, like location and health information. But we must also recognize that responsible data uses enhance our economy and should not be curtailed.

“The American Data Privacy & Protection Act (ADPPA), the most recent privacy proposal to gain significant support on Capitol Hill, is in many ways counterproductive to the President’s goals. It favors Big Tech platforms’ “walled gardens” that collect and leverage a variety of consumer data, while placing stifling restrictions on digital advertising and marketing that enable smaller innovators to compete with the large platforms that benefit from direct relationships with billions of users.

“Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission has begun an overly-expansive regulatory process that paints virtually all business practices that collect and process consumer data as “commercial surveillance,” which could have a similar counterproductive outcome of empowering market dominance of Big Tech, rather than curtailing it.

“We agree with the President that lasting, impactful privacy rules must be developed by Congress in a bipartisan manner. A national privacy law must be mindful of the current challenges to competition, protect responsible consumer data used for beneficial purposes, ban the most harmful practices, and promote competition with dominant platforms that America desperately needs.”

– Leigh Freund, President & CEO