• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 7, 2025

The Association of National Advertisers is urging House Republicans to endorse a nationwide opt-out privacy standard that would override state laws, arguing that a federal law would lower costs for businesses.

A national standard “would help alleviate the substantial compliance burden imposed on businesses, eliminate confusion that may arise due to potentially conflicting state standards, retain well-functioning sectoral safeguards, and help small and startup businesses continue to offer innovative services in a competitive online marketplace,” the Association of National Advertisers writes in comments sent Monday to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Privacy Working Group.

The group, which formed in February and includes only Republicans, is led by committee chair Rep. Brett Guthrie (Kentucky) and vice-chair Rep. John Joyce (Pennsylvania).

The ad organization adds that businesses “face staggering compliance costs” due to variations in current state privacy laws.

As of today, 19 states have enacted comprehensive consumer privacy laws, according to the privacy focused nonprofit IAPP (formerly International Association of Privacy Professionals).

The Association of National Advertisers specifically argues to lawmakers that companies should be allowed to harness “non-sensitive” data for targeted advertising, unless consumers affirmatively opt out.

“Unnecessary limits on routine data uses that sustain the ad-based online marketplace would hinder consumers’ access to low cost information and lead to a rise in subscription-based pricing that would threaten the egalitarian nature of today’s open internet,” the group writes.

“Any proposed framework should preserve the safe and reasonable data uses that underpin modern data-driven business practices, drive competition and innovation, and help safeguard consumer access to free and low-cost information,” the organization adds.

The group argues sensitive data should be “subject to heightened restrictions,” but contends that many state laws have defined sensitive too broadly.

“Certain data should be subject to heightened protections that give consumers greater control over the processing of this data; however, some data elements that many states have designated as sensitive, such as race, ethnicity, or religious affiliation data, are vital for reasonable and routine business practices and should not be categorically defined as sensitive” the group argues. “For example, businesses should be able to use such data to target bespoke hair products to Black women, or to extend messaging about religious programs or missions to congregations using religious affiliation.”

Federal lawmakers have drafted two major bipartisan privacy bills in recent years, but ad industry groups opposed the proposals, and both ultimately failed to pass.

The American Data Privacy and Protection Act, proposed in 2022, would have prohibited companies from collecting or processing data about people's cross-site activity for ad purposes -- effectively outlawing one form of behavioral targeting. Other provisions would have continued to let companies draw on data collected from their own sites in order to serve targeted ads to adults, on an opt-out basis.

In 2024, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) and Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Washington) unveiled the bipartisan American Privacy Rights Act. That bill, also, would have prohibited businesses from serving targeted ads to consumers based on their activity across unaffiliated sites and apps.

Association of National Advertisers CEO Bob Liodice and American Association of Advertising Agencies CEO Marla Kaplowitz told lawmakers last year that the bill “would eviscerate the modern advertising industry.”

That bill died last year, after the House Energy and Commerce Committee cancelled a scheduled markup of the measure.