Outlook for Big Tech Bills Dims as Omnibus Excludes Key Measures

Lawmakers rushing to shore up online privacy protections for kids — once seen as the most widely supported proposal to rein in big tech — are on the verge of defeat after their bills were excluded from the year-end spending deal released early Tuesday.

The 117th Congress brought some momentum for online privacy protections with the advancement of a bipartisan, comprehensive measure as well as two narrower bills focused on children. However, no provisions from any of the bills made it into a government spending package seen as one of the last shots to enact the measures.

“It is extremely disappointing that lawmakers failed to enact new online protections for kids and teens this Congress,” Josh Golin, executive director of children’s advocacy group Fairplay, said in an email. “The enormous coalitions we built this year to demand online protections for children will be even more determined, vocal and effective in 2023.”

Sponsors of the Kids Online Safety Act (S. 3663) and Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (S.1628), also known as COPPA 2.0, pushed until the last minute to include their measures in the spending bill but faced opposition from key lawmakers, including House Energy and Commerce ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), who is still committed to her comprehensive bill, the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (H.R. 8152).

The Kids Online Safety Act would require companies to prevent and mitigate harms to kids, such as sexual exploitation, and provide parents with safeguards. COPPA 2.0 would prohibit companies from collecting the personal information of anyone age 13 to 16 without their consent and ban targeted ads to children. The American Data Privacy and Protection Act would provide similar protections.

Rodgers maintained throughout the end-of-year push that her bill, cosponsored with panel Chair Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), is better because it would protect not just kids but all Americans. The Washington Republican is poised to lead the Energy and Commerce panel in the next Congress and will use that bill as a starting point for renewed privacy negotiations.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) also blocked the effort to include the Kids Online Safety Act in the spending bill. Wicker, who’s currently top Republican on the Senate Commerce panel that oversees privacy issues, is set to shift to the ranking member spot on the Armed Services Committee next year.

Earlier: Sen. Wicker Throws Fresh Wrench in Kids’ Online Privacy Measure

Bipartisan antitrust measures also did not make it into the spending package after facing fierce lobbying from the tech industry. One, the Open App Markets Act (S. 2710), would prohibit app stores such as those run by Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google from imposing certain restrictions on app developers as a condition for using the store. The other, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S. 2992), would bar tech platforms such as Amazon.com Inc. from giving their own products preferential treatment.