“Privacy” is a fashionable term among both federal and state lawmakers because it is one of the few policy objectives that generally curries favor on both the left and the right.
For this reason, the grandly named American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) has momentum in Congress.
If approved, APRA would erect a complicated new web of regulations and mandates for how companies treat their users’ data, with the goal of making it harder to mine said data for misuse against individuals.
As the saying goes: buyer beware.
An all-but-certain side effect of APRA is that it could make it dramatically harder for tech startups to get off the ground and for small businesses to compete – while providing yet another competitive advantage to already massive companies like Meta and Amazon.
