State legislatures are now tackling consumers’ digital privacy. Given the internet’s inherently international character, a federal bill setting a national standard for digital privacy would be ideal. Yet, in the absence of federal legislation, state governments are seeking to address consumer privacy. Unfortunately, overly broad and burdensome regulatory obligations pose a real and immediate risk to digital innovation. Ensuring a globally robust market requires balancing consumer privacy and legitimate information exchange between consumers and digital services companies.
The following principles and legislative checks from Reason Foundation and the International Center for Law and Economics seek to help legislators and stakeholders narrowly tailor state consumer privacy policy to address concrete consumer harms while preventing disproportionately punitive responses that obstruct market performance.