Nobody saw Virginia coming.
That was very much an industry-led effort by Microsoft and Amazon.
Amazon did not respond to requests for comment, and Microsoft declined to answer specific questions on the record.
Tech companies offered similar statements to The Markup.
Mostly, industry has advocated for two provisions.
The industry claims such privacy protections are too extreme.
And in Texas, industry pressure has shaped an even weaker bill.
Protocol has previouslydocumented similar efforts in Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, and Minnesota.
Connecticut
The path of Connecticuts bill is illustrative of how these battles have played out.
Our legislative commissioner took the Virginia language and applied Connecticut terminology, Maroney said.
That industry-backed bill passed through committee unanimously on March 23.
Its an uphill battle because youre fighting a lot of forces on many fronts, Duff said.
Google declined to respond to The Markups questions about their lobbying.
Apple and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.
AT&T lobbyists persuaded House leadership to delay the bills scheduled March 2 hearing, Walke said.
For the whole next 24-hour period, lobbyists were pulling members off the house floor and whipping them.
But certain companies remained resistantWalke declined to specify which onesand the bill died without receiving a hearing.
Walke said he plans to reintroduce the modified version of the bill again next session.
Texas
In Texas, Rep. Giovanni Capriglione first introduced a privacy bill in 2019.
The state then created a committee to study data privacy, which waspopulated in large part by industry representatives.
Facebook declined to answer questions on the record for this story.
The ones that were most interested were primarily the big tech companies, he said.
I received significant opposition to making any changes to the status quo.
The Washington Privacy Act was first introduced in 2019 and was the inspiration for Virginias law.
Microsoft, Amazon, and more recently Google, have all testified in favor of the bill.
It passed the state Senate 481 in March.
Other States
Other statesIllinois, Kentucky, Alabama, Alaska, and Coloradohave Virgina-like bills under consideration.
The framework they settled on was significantly similar to Virginias on key points, according to The Markups analysis.
A Mississippi bill containing a private right of actionmet a similar fate.
This article byTodd Featherswasoriginally published on The Markupand was republished under theCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativeslicense.
