Maine Rejects Broad Privacy Bill
Maine lawmakers this week failed to pass a broad privacy bill that was opposed by ad industry groups and other businesses.
The Maine Online Data Privacy Act (LD 1822), which previously advanced in the statehouse, would have imposed sweeping restrictions on companies’ ability to collect data and target ads, and completely banned the sale of sensitive data.
Ad industry organizations urged lawmakers to reject the bill, arguing it was more stringent than other state privacy laws.
“If enacted, LD 1822 would make the state’s approach to privacy an outlier in ways that would harm consumers and businesses of all sizes,” the Association of National Advertisers, American Association of Advertising Agencies, American Advertising Federation and Digital Advertising Alliance said in a letter sent to Maine Senate members earlier this year.
Among other provisions, the proposed law would have required companies to allow Maine residents to opt out of the use of their personal data — meaning information that’s linked or linkable to devices or consumers — for behaviorally targeted advertising.
The bill would also have prohibit companies from selling data that can determine geolocation within a 1,750-foot radius, as well as biometric information, genetic data and information revealing race, ethnicity, health data, sexual orientation and citizenship status.
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
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