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A child uses a smartphone. Photo via Adobe Stock
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When they returned to Montpelier for this legislative session, Vermont lawmakers looking to rein in Big Tech had to retrace their steps.
Last biennium, after months of contentious negotiations, the state Legislature passed a sweeping data privacy package — a 100-plus-page bill that would have established some of the strongest online privacy protections in the nation. But despite broad support, Gov. Phil Scott vetoed the bill, arguing that it would harm local businesses while opening the state up to costly litigation. A vote to override the veto failed narrowly in the Senate.
At the start of this session, the architects of last year’s bill followed a more piecemeal approach, splitting the changes into two main bills.
One, S.69 — known by advocates as the Kids Code — would require social media companies to adjust their design codes for users under 18 with the goal of making platforms like TikTok and Snapchat less addictive and harmful for children. The other, S.71, would establish comprehensive data privacy protections, minimizing the amount of Vermonters’ data that tech companies and online retailers can collect, use and sell.
With the session nearing a close, lawmakers are celebrating the passage of the former bill, which was overwhelmingly approved by both chambers last week and was delivered to the governor on Friday.
But after months of testimony and dealmaking, legislators have chosen to put the data privacy overhaul on ice for the year. The primary reason to take more time, leading lawmakers have said, is to try to counter the narrative spread by an intense lobbying campaign waged by local and national interests against more stringent data privacy rules.
“The public and even other members of the body don’t realize how extreme the lobbying tactics are on tech bills in the building,” Rep. Monique Priestley, D-Bradford, said last week. “Lobbyists have a lot to do with deciding the fate of these bills.”
Rep. Monique Priestley, D-Bradford, listens as Laura Marquez-Garrett, an attorney with the Social Media Victims Law Center, testifies before the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Tuesday, April 8, 2025. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
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‘There are all these different levels of industry’
With federal lawmakers mostly unable or unwilling to effectively regulate cyberspace, Vermont legislators have been trying for years to establish digital privacy ground rules at the state level.
In their latest attempt, state lawmakers this year put forward S.71, which seeks to minimize the amount of data that companies can harvest from Vermonters, enabling them to collect only what is necessary for the service they provide. In its original form, the bill also includes a private right of action, allowing consumers to sue companies for illegally collecting and selling sensitive data.
Almost as soon as it was introduced, the bill hit a wall of resistance from local businesses and national groups.
“We have concerns about untested and confusing definitions, a continued private right of action being included and moving in a way that will catch businesses getting it wrong to the benefit of litigators rather than helping them get it right to the benefit of consumers,” Megan Sullivan, vice president of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, said during a Senate committee hearing in March.
The Vermont chamber and others instead backed S.93, another bill introduced this year that proposes weaker data protections and does not include a private right of action.
But lawmakers have said that it’s hard to distinguish homegrown concerns from those of big tech companies who have swarmed the building this year as well.
According to records from the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office, Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google, Netflix and TikTok all had representatives in the Capitol this year. Collectively, the six companies spent just over $110,000 on lobbying activities in Vermont since January.
Representatives from nationwide industry lobbying groups that represent tech conglomerates, like the State Privacy and Security Coalition and the Connected Commerce Council, have also been in the building, according to records from the Secretary of State’s Office.
“There are all these different levels of industry — the international companies and local businesses,” Sen. Wendy Harrison, D-Windham, said. “It’s more helpful for me and other legislators to know what the impact is on actual Vermont businesses.”
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Sen. Wendy Harrison, D-Windham, listens to testimony during a meeting of the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Wednesday, February 28, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
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‘A compromise with industry’
Lacking sufficient support to pass S.71 as written in the Senate, Harrison and fellow members of the Senate Committee on Institutions decided to amend the bill, essentially replacing it with the language of S.93 — thereby removing the private right of action — before passing it out of the chamber and over to the House.
According to Priestley, the House Committee on Commerce, which took up the bill in April, expected to reach a compromise with industry players and eventually restore the bill to something closer to its original form before advancing it this year. Instead, they’ve decided to hold onto the bill for the summer.
“Toward the end of session we were trying to get to a place where we could strike a compromise with industry, and it was really not coming to that,” she said.
Priestley said that the pause would allow her coalition to work with lawmakers in other New England states like Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine, which are developing similar policies.
She also said she hoped the time would allow for lawmakers to find daylight between the concerns of Vermont businesses and those of tech conglomerates.
“Our decision in wanting to take a pause this summer is in large part to make sure that we’re actually getting engagement from Vermonters and small businesses from all over the state because that’s who this is protecting,” she said.
Lawmakers have similarly decided to shelf until next year S.70, a bill that would put up stricter guardrails for third-party data brokers, and H.342, a bill that would grant public servants the legal right to request that their private information be removed from data broker websites like Whitepages.
Priestley said she and other bill drafters would now “be spending all summer on engagement, education and coalition building” and will look to move forward on the bills next year.
‘It’s critical to support our kids’
Vermont lawmakers have found more common ground on the Kids Code, which cleared the Legislature last week and is now under review by Gov. Scott.
Taking aim at social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram that consumer advocates say are explicitly designed to keep children hooked, the bill would require platforms to adjust their algorithms and design codes for users under 18, functionally prohibiting certain addictive features like 24-hour push notifications and endless scroll for minors.
The legislation would also force social media platforms to adopt stringent default privacy settings for minors for their safety, while minimizing the data that the platforms can collect from younger users to then use or sell.
Supporters say the bill would go a long way toward improving the mental health of teens by mitigating the worst excesses of social media use, a goal that also lies behind the ongoing push to ban smartphones from Vermont classrooms.
A miscellaneous education bill, H.480, which would require K-12 schools in the state to adopt phone-free policies, passed out of the Senate last month and is awaiting approval from the House.
“It’s critical to support our kids,” Harrison, the lead sponsor of S.69, said in an interview last week. “Having the ban on cellphones and the Kids Code together, I’m very pleased that we (in the Senate) have passed both of those.”
The Kids Code now heads to the desk of Gov. Scott, who has tentatively signaled his support for the bill, at least in spirit.
“I’m in favor of trying to protect kids from social media,” Scott said Wednesday at his weekly press conference, noting that at that point he had not officially received the bill. “They may have come to a place where I can support it, but, again, we’ll take a look at it when we get it.”
Scott has continued to raise concerns that the Kids Code could face an uphill battle in the courts, where groups representing tech firms have attempted to torpedo similar laws passed by other states. However, the support from legislators in both chambers would be enough to override any veto, if it holds.
Most prominently, NetChoice, an advocacy group representing Google and Meta, among many other companies, has sued several states, including California and Maryland, to block the implementation of social media design code laws on First Amendment grounds.
However, Vermont lawmakers say the state’s Kid Code deliberately avoids those pitfalls by targeting the structural design of social media platforms rather than moderating content.
“We’ve basically been trying to keep up with those lawsuits and making sure that our language reflects what is being called out in court,” Priestley said.
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