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State attorneys general may soon play a bigger role in regulating tech companies and the digital industry, speakers discussed this week at the National Attorney General’s Association meeting.
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, president of the NAAG, has chosen a topic for this week’s conference in Des Moines: Consumer Protection in the Internet Age. Officials this week heard from experts on issues ranging from data privacy to cryptocurrency about future legal battles their states may take.
One of the biggest legal frontiers emphasized in talks is the digital economy, as state and federal lawmakers work to create laws for both businesses that do business online and the companies that own those online spaces.
“We want governments to be stronger.”
Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told AGS.
“The pandemic has accelerated the digitization of our daily lives,” Chopra said. “… every sector is changing and offering new opportunities, but it also poses many questions.
Many of these questions are how to protect consumers as technology advances, Chopra said. AGs should look to federal agencies like the CFPB as allies when it comes to these legal battles — but he says federal enforcement sometimes delays when states can act quickly.
“We want regions to be stronger,” he said.
In the year In 2020, 48 lawyers pointed to an antitrust lawsuit filed against Meta, then Facebook, alleging that the company competed to protect its “monopoly power.” In June 2021, a federal judge dismissed the case after the states waited too long to challenge the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. The attorney general appealed that decision in January.
Francis Haugen, who used to work at Facebook, spoke at the event. On Instagram, she revealed internal research showing a link between the company’s algorithms and teenage mental health problems. Haugen, originally from Iowa, argued that the company could monitor existing algorithms and develop new methods to target young people with risk-taking behaviors.
Miller joins a group of at least 11 state AGs investigating Meta following the document leak. State officials are investigating whether the data showed Meta violated consumer protection laws and put the public at risk through algorithms used to keep young people engaged on Instagram.
The tech company’s use of children’s data isn’t the only issue raised at the conference. A panel discussed the federal lawsuit filed by New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas against Google, which alleges the company collected data on New Mexico students and their families from educational products.
Google collected personal data from physical locations to make browsing history into voice recordings, Balderas said in the lawsuit alleging violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The law requires parental consent before a company can collect personal details from a child under 13. The state settled the lawsuit in December, and Google agreed to launch a privacy and online safety project for children in New Mexico.
But data collection isn’t just a problem for children, Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya told conference participants Tuesday. Due to the lack of government control over data collection, vulnerable populations are at risk, he said. Survivors of domestic abuse face threats because of the geolocation data collected, Bedoya said, and fraudsters target people who don’t speak English with online scams.
The government should step up to help the people who are most affected by these practices, said Mr. Bedoya. That means more legislation on data collection regulation in Washington and state capitals, he said, but also for state and federal regulators to mount more challenges.
“Algorithmic discrimination isn’t just about what’s covered,” Bedoya said. “It’s also about finding the right mechanic or simply having a mechanic.”
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