This month, the Insights Association is dealing with new state privacy and data security laws, funding for the census, how insights offices can approach reopening as the pandemic ends, and a variety of other policy concerns, while helping to advance a fix to California A.B. 2257 through the state legislature.

This month, the Insights Association is dealing with new privacy legislation in more states, addressing more data tax problems, advocating for additional census funding, and making significant progress in efforts to improve California A.B. 2257.

In addition to a win at the Supreme Court on TCPA that should ease worries for the more telephone-hesitant insights pros, the Insights Association was tied up this month in state battles over comprehensive privacy legislation, defending marketing research access to DMV records in Texas, promoting legal defenses against data breaches in Connecticut, deterring push polls in Massachusetts, continued advocacy on California A.B. 2257, and helping to win new COVID-19-exposure liability limitations for businesses in Florida.

The U.S. Supreme Court has clarified the definition of an autodialer in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The case, in which the Insights Association had joined an amicus brief, potentially clears up decades of convoluted and conflicting rules and decisions from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and various courts that have tied legitimate actors in knots and fueled a deluge of class action litigation.

The insights industry scored important legislative victories in the last month for pharmaceutical MR in Pennsylvania, data security in Utah, and more COVID-19 small business loans and grants at the federal level and in California. At the same time, we’re staring down lots of problematic legislation, including a new comprehensive data privacy law in Virginia and a complex excise tax on data collection in New York. Meanwhile, advocacy continues on issues like: California A.B. 2257; worrisome legislation in Congress that would allow for the unionization of research subjects; limitations on coronavirus-related exposure liability; the census; and restrictions on exit polling.

The Insights Association, the leading nonprofit trade association for the insights industry, expressed "serious concerns that many phone calls and texts to consumers for the purposes of bona fide marketing research are being improperly blocked or labeled as spam by voice service providers and call blocking and labeling service providers."

The Insights Association has been racking up advocacy wins for our members in the areas of pharmaceutical research, small business loan forgiveness, telephone research, and jury trial research.

With a state of emergency being called in many jurisdictions across the United States, does that mean you can't make telephone research calls?

The Insights Association has scored several policy victories in recent months – on Capitol Hill and in states across the U.S. Here are some of the highlights with content links for you and your team, all made possible by your membership.

Decrying the "current opaque and unaccountable telephone environment," the Insights Association urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) "to make transparency and redress a priority, since