Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good morning, everyone. This is the Vermont Health Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It is Wednesday, 01/25/2026, at 09:07 in the morning. The department will be hearing from members who have introduced bills this year to give them time to come in and explain their bills and see if there's anything there that you're interested in taking up, provided we have time, of

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: course. So the first introduction was on '85 to twenty. Representing Priestley with us. Just switch seats. Magic.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Good morning. Good morning. Hi, committee. Okay. So 05:20 actually introduced as a short form at the end of last year, at the last minute, and I have a long form, ready to go, if the committee is interested in it. At the basic, the bill is requiring that social media companies provide individuals with the ability to delete their user data, obtain their user data in a portable format and transfer their user data to other social media platforms. This bill passed in Utah last year as the social media piece, and Utah is amending it this year to add AI data user data, basically, to that as well. So the long form that I have has both the social media and AI platforms in one bill, it could be separated out if we don't wanna tackle two at the same time. And let's see. Then just so you know who's, like, introducing it this year, New York, Virginia, Minnesota, South Carolina, Kentucky, New Hampshire are all running this model this year. I'll just go through some of the stuff. Basically, the findings are that individuals should have a right to control and move their own user data and social interactions online, That companies have demonstrated a pattern of restricting interoperability between platforms. And maybe I'll just give an example. For instance, I'm going to weave meta platforms like Instagram and Facebook, and my only real option is to just delete my accounts. I can't, like, keep my data. I mean, I can download it as a really awkward set of a bunch of HTML single files that share some information with me if I want a record of it. In some cases, when I've been doing the privacy tour, I actually had Vermont constituents who said they tried to delete their meta profile, and they weren't able to. I am gonna test that myself and see if that's true for me. Alternatively, I joined Blue Sky, which is kind of an alternative to X or Twitter. And then I also joined Flashes, which is an Instagram alternative, and Lights, which are Skylight, which is basically a TikTok alternative. And in each of those cases, since they're all on the same open protocol, as as I added the other apps, but I shared across the accounts all of my media from my Blue Sky account that was photos loaded into my flashes, all of the videos that were in my Blue Sky account loaded into my Skylights account. So it just means that, like, I can continue adding apps where I want to continue having a presence and have that that media kind of, like, follow me around. And then I can choose which apps I just don't wanna be on anymore, but my data goes with me. It doesn't just go with the platform. So that's essentially what we're trying to do. And there's lots of the kind of the open atmosphere kind of, like, protocol that Blue Sky is on. There's other open protocols that people can sign up for. So it's just a kind of like a in a way, like a larger, like, open source for the people type of model rather than for the corporation the individual corporations being able to benefit from us. And And the nice thing about those types of platforms is, and actually what's kind of messed up in joining these platforms, is that I find myself I'm not addicted to using Blue Sky, because they don't use an algorithm and ads that are trying to addict me and keep me on there. I'm spending much less time just going through on a day daily basis saying, like, I wanna catch up with the news for the day, and then I'm done. I'm not, like, continuing to try to, like, you know, just fed to things that will keep me scrolling on Facebook. So it's a fascinating mental activity to switch platforms and see that. The other piece of this is an extension to artificial intelligence apps, chatbots, and things like that, where you're loading in your data. That one company has your data. You can't move it to another platform. So for instance, I've used ChatGPT, but I've also used Lumo, Gemini, that kind of stuff. And my only real option is just to delete my history if I'm gonna

[Unidentified Committee Member]: move across them.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: This additionally has some privacy protections in here. So the rights to the user is that their data is portable, that it's usable, and then it can go to a different platform. And the user also has the right to opt out of the processing of their user data for the purposes of targeted advertising and sale of their user data. And then this has severability between the sections, like the artificial intelligence, social media sections. And I guess that's the gist. Yeah.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: I'm wondering if we could take that delete portion of it and throw it into whatever bill we were just talking about.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: So yeah. So two eleven, so the data broker bill. So that so these are just two different target like, it's kinda like kids code where it's that the kids code bill really only applies to generally social media platforms for kids. It doesn't apply like, the comprehensive data applies to all platforms where kids might have their data, in the Internet in general. And it's the same thing for, like, two eleven is focused on data brokers that are selling and carrying the data, and this applies to social media and AI companies. I

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: like

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: the idea of being able to delete my data from

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: a server like that and to be able to access my data to see what kind of stuff they figured out about me. My only concern is what happens. How far does the build go? Does it start to go into some issues? And you said you have a long form?

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Yeah, I have a long form, yeah, yeah, which I can share with you guys. And I have a one pager and that kind of stuff too. And I work really closely. The sponsor for the Utah bill that passed last year, Doug Fiafia, a rep Doug Fiafiaf, we co chair the Future Caucus, the AI, the National Future Caucus AI Task Force together. I worked really closely together too, so he can he can also help present. And he was at Google for five years before becoming a rep. So big picture sounds like a anti restraint of trade kind of bill. A what? Perfect. She's taking the call. Or competitors. Yes. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Like, Yeah. Yeah. Those barriers to Exactly. What seems like a Exactly. Yes. Yes.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: I just like the delete and information part of it. Just circle.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. For sure. And I mean, I think so the thing for me, like, struggling on wanting to, like, leave platforms is, like, for me, like, I kind of wanna have an account on Meta so that I have it tied to business accounts and that kind of stuff that and legislative accounts. I want there are people that are are not going to leave those platforms. I want that accessible, but I wanna be able to delete the twenty years of my life that I've put on those platforms. I can't do that easily without deleting my entire account, which is, like, ridiculous.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: So you're not talking about deleting all data. You're talking about deleting data for time frames?

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: No, I mean both, just in general, to give users more control over what is on these platforms and whether or not you can move it to other things.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, I think the delete and accessing your data is something that I would be interested in. I'm a little leery of the rest of the stuff. Yeah.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: You mentioned Utah passed this bill, and they're modifying it. Anybody else? And has it gone into effect yet?

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: You know what? I'm not sure. I can get the Utah date. I'm actually not sure. I think that probably went into effect right away. This one goes into effect right away. I will double check, Edye. And the interesting thing about Utah is, obviously, majority red red Republican governor, who is a major national champion for this bill. And so that is exciting to me too. This is a very bipartisan bill across the country. So Utah is the only one that passed it, and then I'll check the inaction date. New York and and Vermont introduced it at the same time at the very end of last year as short forms. And then we had these other states that are going with it this year.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Hello. Hi. I was wondering, when you were talking about the photos and the ability to move from one to the other, would this also apply to something like Google or Google Drive?

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: You know what? I am not sure. I've got to double check as far as how that social media definition interplays.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, because they're a gray area.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll double check on that.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: It's just in case I need it. Not used to the seat. It's hot.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: You're welcome.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It's hot now. We have an exciting question.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: So my bill is very simple. It's, H525, and it has to do with glass coverage. This came to me by a constituent who has replaced five windshields in four years. She was concerned because she can't seem to get a good she's having a hard time with glass coverage. What this bill proposes is it makes it has insurance companies give people the option to buy into a zero deductible glass coverage. Right now in Vermont statute, there's no mandate for insurance companies to require blast coverage. And there's certainly nothing that specifically requires them to offer or provide it. And what this bill would do is it would allow, it would make insurance companies have to offer some sort of a product. It would not be mandatory. It would just be an option. When I did a little research, three states came to mind that have similar laws. That's Arizona, Connecticut, and Minnesota. So in both of the in Arizona insurers writing private passenger auto with comprehensive coverage must provide at the insured's option complete coverage or repair replacement of damage safety equipment without a deductible. Connecticut has a very similar thing and Minnesota as well. One of the other thing that bears mentioning is nowadays with a lot of the cars with like adaptive cruise control and things like that, it's not just replacing the glass. You now have those cameras that are up top, and they all need to be recalibrated. There's some expense involved in that. Basically, this bill would do is it I I I don't wanna force an insurer to do anything, but I want but but I this bill makes them at least offer this this coverage. That's that's pretty much it. Question.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: I think I see. Michael? Do you have an idea of how many companies do not offer coverage? I tried to go and look and see if I even have coverage.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: I don't know. Don't have any idea. Mean, I'm not going to say the constituent. We'll shop around, you know? So I know that some I don't know as if yeah. I I guess I haven't really talked to any of the specific insurance companies in the area about it. Did you talk with Jamie, Ian? I didn't have a chance to.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: We

[Unidentified Committee Member]: got an email from somebody

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah, saw that.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Talking about it's interesting, just that the concern, at least from this industry person, is about fraud, is about anyway. Potential for using it for broad opulent wipes.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Not saying that's how that would work. And

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: some of the ways I've seen, the way the bill's been written, one of the some of these places, it says you need to see if you can patch it first. You know, like you have a you you can do the the windshield. Yeah. That thing. Before you can actually get the full coverage. So there's a there's a process that needs to go through. Yeah, I'd like to hear more about that because I'm not sure I'm not seeing how someone could really be fraudulent with this any more than anything else.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'm guessing you got the email too.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: Yeah. Probably

[Unidentified Committee Member]: did. Yeah. And it's also

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: it's also post office. I

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: don't know if it's Jonathan?

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: I think my question was sort of about this as well, and about, I guess, inducements, including premium stakes, which seem important to consider. But the question is, do you happen to know if in Arizona it's compulsory in a way that the bill you're positing is not?

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: I know it's not compulsory. It just needs to be provided. I would imagine that they need to at least let the client know that you can get glass coverage at zero deductible. But there's nothing that that I I wouldn't say no. Not not compels them that they have to get it.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: If I'm understanding your question. Yeah.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: The question was if Arizona has language. It had pointed out that, you know, all of a sudden 10% of the stuff seems to be happening in Arizona in a four year period. And the question was, all right, is Arizona's legislation somehow requiring more requiring something that representative Micklus, your bill is not requiring? And I was just looking for a distinction there. But thank you.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: No. No. Not that I know of. I mean, granted, I didn't, like, look at the actual bill in Arizona. I just kinda pulled a summary.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Maybe good to have a conversation with deputy commissioner block at the EFR. See what they're seeing and see if there's a need. I'm wondering how how that how the department is looking at glass auto glass repair with the issues with recalibration of the slipstreamers and all of that stuff, and how that's wound, how that's affected the or if it has affected policies that are written now.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: I know that in my situation, I've had to actually use this with the calibration, and I pay a deductible in my plan. And I did have to specifically ask for the broken glass coverage.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It seems like a selling point for an agent or an insurance company, if you're online, to put it out there that here it is. I don't know if we really need to tell them they have to do that. So you can have a chat with Jamie and chat with the Secretary Commissioner as well. I was

[Unidentified Committee Member]: looking at the Arizona statute. This one says it's from 2016, and it looks like in there it is illegal to make any kind of false claims to an insurer about your autobass report. I'm not exactly sure where the stakes come in to that whole conversation, but it does seem like you might be able to put some guardrails around to ensure that false claims, in excess of claims aren't happening.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: And this doesn't We buy our AP business. Right. And this does I looked at I poked around a little bit because this doesn't say you can't have limits on the glass cover just like you would now. I think my policy is, I think, two per policy period or something like that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Well,

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: you're right. A great,

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: impressive committee time management for that. Good morning, Emily from Northfield. I really appreciate you taking up this bill, recognizing that short form bills sometimes get short shrift. There was an important reason that this was most appropriate to be short form. This bill is proposing a mandate for motor vehicle insurance to provide a discount for participation in driver safety courses. And this came to myself and my colleague from Northfield from a constituent who moved here from another state, where that program existed and seemed to be highly beneficial. He was surprised to find out we didn't have one, and it did seem like a positive thing. But I needed to know a little more, and the Department of Insurance folks were able to do a little research for me. And it turns out that there's 35 other states that offer these programs. And most of them are designed in ways that they are revenue neutral. Was immediately thinking, Yeah, but what would it cost? The fees for participation in the courses offset fully, you know, pay for. Some of them, they do it a lot of different ways, some of them are actually just a total subcontract, if you will. Others are more state run. And that really goes to why it seemed like a short form to introduce the concept. Because there's good work and good programs running in lots of other states, but they all do it a little differently. So for me to pick and say, Okay, can Legis Council draft a whole program doing this? When in fact, with just a small amount of testimony, this committee might feel like actually there's a lot of other things that should be considered. So they were very much on top of it right away in terms of being aware of finding out what other states are doing. Gave me some examples on some of the variations that states did in terms of where they some of them were age allocated. Gave an example: ages 55 to 69 get a three year discount and 70 plus a two year discount. I mean they had all sorts of different ways and different ways of funding it and organizing it. I think there probably is a lot of opportunity to do something good for Vermont safety on the roads, because it really incentivizes taking safety courses and updating safety skills. And it appears that it has not been controversial or generated opposition from the insurance industry when those programs have been initiated, because they see the plus plus, and they're all on an even playing field if it's a mandatory offering that is made. So, I would really encourage the committee. I know that we're in the second half of the biennium. There's not a lot of time between now and the crossover date. Taking days of testimony to identify what might work is not realistic for me to even be proposing. What I would suggest is that it's worthy enough to maybe spend a little bit of time having the department come in and talk about it, and then asking them to come back with a not to pass this year, but come back with a concept proposal for what Vermont could be doing to offer this. Know, giving some time, know, come back next year maybe and say, here's a model that we think could work well here. But to sort of endorse the concept to be fleshed out and move forward because it really seems of value.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: you're suggesting to see if the agency is interested in doing it?

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Or to encourage the agency. Yeah, they were clearly recognized. States are doing it. They referenced to my initial question that they offer I mean, motor vehicle insurers currently in Vermont may offer that. They can do a discount for driver safety. And it's a very different approach to say, well, must offer this. And that's when they looked into it further for me and said, 35 other states, and they took a look at some of them and saw the different kinds of models. So getting a bit more of a recommendation of which of these various other states' methods of doing it would seem to be a good match for Vermont to look into more. I think that would be the next question.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Thanks. I appreciate every time we look at what another state is doing that's working well and try to replicate it. Think I that's incredibly helpful. We have pretty low insurance costs right now compared to other states. So I would be curious as to how much of the benefit would be, would the fees actually offset, right? Like how that would work. So I think you're right. I think somebody looking into it makes sense. I also thought that it was interesting. I went to one of the insurance conferences this year, and they talked about many other states where the insurance companies have climate mitigation strategies that actually save the homeowner, the landowner money because And of so it's built in, and this is, again, is not partisan. Every state, every insurance company has figured out that there are ways that they can better and save money by doing certain things. And if insurance companies are finding that they save money by having safer drivers, which they are, this is a win win across the board. So I really appreciate thinking about those kinds of things.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: And I think to your point, the amount of the reduced rate as a benefit is an insurance calculation in terms of the savings by reduction in ad sales, which of course is much more important even than financial savings, but the life impact savings.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Intuitively, it seems like this would save stop accidents, save money. But did you see any data on it for the states that have implemented this? Have they done any type of data gathering to find out what the accident rate was in those age groups before they implemented this, now how was it after they implemented it?

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: I don't know on an individual state basis. Intuitively, they wouldn't continue with something that was losing money. But I have to say that the individual who brought this to me actually had done a fair amount of looking into experiences of other states. You know, would be very happy to respond to any questions from the committee or to briefly testify about some of the more specific details and information that he's found in support of doing this.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Do the other states mandate a percentage that insurance companies have to give for a discount?

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: I do not believe any of them mandate a specific percentage. I think that's where it becomes the actual market impact. There may be some of them, because they all differ so much.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Wondering how I know AARP provides driver training for their members, and I wonder if those states tie into, or if the insurers tie into AARP, to help AARP pay for the courses. I'm

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: sure some of them do. Apparently some of them, it is a state run safety course. It runs that whole range to being any program that meets our criteria and so forth.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think it's interesting. I think it's probably a good idea to ask the Edsger to take a look at that and bring recommendations back next year on what we could do. So

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: GEICO offers a discount. And I just went on their site, it says, take a a state for an authorized course. And Vermont does not offer defensive driving discount at this time.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay. Great. I think that's the actual goal of the last game. EFR highway that like to approach it, but it didn't if our bill were, we could just send a letter to them like we did last year.

[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Appreciate that very much. And if anybody has a follow-up question that I could refer back to my constituent, he would be happy respond also to questions, if you just want to, by email or whatever. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Hi again. Long journey from across the room. Cool. So this is, 5 No, $6.99 An Act Relating to Consumer Protection from Abusive Acts or Practices. So the two that I'm gonna do are super short. I think basically the background on this is in all of kind of the learning and talking with folks at state levels, but also national levels, FTC folks and things like that, and law professors who do deep dives into data privacy and AI regulation. I've been trying to you know, there's there's we have the comprehensive data privacy act and those and the artificial intelligence product liability bills that are long and super technical and complicated and and have and, you know, are very specific on addressing all types of things. A curiosity for me, learning in these spaces with people, is are there more direct things that are much more simple that can get at the roots of what we're actually talking about? Like, there ways that we don't have to write a 50 page or 100 page bill, that we can write a two page bill that actually covers a lot of the grounds that we're looking at addressing? And so in all these conversations, it kept on coming up over and over and over that small tweaks could be made to the underlying consumer protection acts across states across the country. And so one of those one of those discussions I end up having with law professors, but also FTC regulators and AGs, was that we have unfair and deceptive practices and acts in our Consumer Protection Act, but an area that actually could very elegantly provide tools for regulators in a very subtle way is to add abusive practices to that. And so, the bill that you have, if it's in front of you, is really generally based off of a policy statement that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had put out as a policy statement in 2010, and then they updated it in 2023. It is not rules. They're not hard rules. They're just a policy guidance framework. But it's based off of that. And let's see. So I'm just going go over. So, as far as what is an abusive act or practice? First, a material interference with understanding. So, it's conduct that obscures or makes it difficult for consumers to understand terms or conditions of a financial product or service. And then, generally, this is, like, extended to not just financial products, but, like, certain like, actual all the stuff that we're trying to do when it comes to, like, privacy and AI. And so this the examples of this are and I think everybody will relate, buried disclosures, fine prints, jargon. So 100 page privacy policies, AI policies that nobody reads and they just click. Digital or physical obstacles. So, things like pop ups, hidden notices. A lot of dark pattern stuff. So, this committee is very familiar with the dark patterns of burying things or getting people to do things that they might not otherwise do. Clicking that cookie consent banner but not actually reading it, overshadowing key information, and omission of things that people should actually know. And intent to cause confusion. And Let's see. And then an abusive act or conduct may also occur when an unfair advantage is taken of any consumer. So kind of feeding into a lack of understanding of the full risks, costs, or conditions of which they're doing. So, for instance, if you're opting into having your data be shared with companies, do you actually fully understand what that means and what is then happening with your data? Inability to protect your own interests. Basically, not understanding what you're giving away and the cost of that to you. And who gets the power in that situation. What are you actually giving to somebody else that you're taking away from yourself? And reasonable reliance on an entity to act in the consumer's interest, not just in their own in taking advantage of them. In this case, unlike the unfair and deceptive, it doesn't actually require proof that there's substantial harm to be done, just that the practice is abusive. So you're focusing on the way that it's being carried out, not the outcome of it. It's yeah. Let's see. Trying to think. That is I mean, that's the general. It's like a it's a super short three page bill, where the actual changes don't even make up a page. But yeah.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Do we have any guidelines

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: on what's considered abusive?

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Yeah. So that's in the so that's well, so pieces pieces of this, like, the high level guidelines are in the bill, but then and what I just, like, went over. But then it gives the AG rulemaking to define those, yeah, in an ongoing basis. Yeah. Uh-oh.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: So I love doing simple changes to make big impact, right? Like that, I like the way that feels. What do we think section two thirty, how that would interplay with this. Isn't that

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: I don't think I mean, so not a section two thirty expert, but from what I have had to be diving into that with, I mean, I feel like the thing that usually comes up with that is it's user content. It's not user choice. So it's like so this isn't restricting the users from doing anything. It's how the company interacts with them and the choices the companies give them. Yeah. Again, not an expert, so I don't know if

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: I'm missing something. They have used it to protect them from average so far. I

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: talked to a variety of state AGs across the country and multiple FTC folks who specialize in this stuff. And generally, the two camps were this is super needed. It's not a good solution. We should do it. Federal government should have done it. Probably won't happen under this current situation. Then others were like, I don't know that we can't justify already using deceptive and unfair. But I think big piece here is the harms, the, like, not having to prove the harms thing and showing the patterns that are being used. Kinda like the kids code where we're, like although we are talking about harms with the kids code, but we're getting at, like, what are the what is the design what are the design mechanisms that are actually getting people into hot water? And so that's kinda that's why I like this one is it's getting to, like, how are people actually designing and implementing their products in a way that confuses people and gets them to do things that they wouldn't otherwise necessarily do if they fully understood what they were doing.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: So a product that is designed to take advantage of a consumer, whether the consumer is harmed or not, the problem? Or that because there's still harm.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. Right. So it's

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah. The hard circle to spare.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Yeah, yeah.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah. I'd sort of had a a same sort of question. I'm not that familiar with how courts have applied in the.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Receptive.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: Yeah. And, you know, generally, as a rubric, you know, jeez, that sounds like a period of These factors sound kinda a period of me kinda thing. But I guess so I'm trying to understand what's added to this. Yeah. Other than, you know, maybe some specific types of things that you might consider unfairly accepted. Yep. Oh, the other issue was, you know, with the proof of harm you're saying is required. What would why would a court think about the abusive types of practices and whether you need to show harm too. Yeah, yeah.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: I mean, I think for me, the dark pattern types of pieces of this where it's like, you can I think, like, again, any one of us who have been talking about the elements of the privacy act or data broker selling our data, we are giving away things without realizing it? And I think you can see that practice and you can see the outcome of that in a way, but in some of these cases, like, you might not see the actual harm that's done until somebody's identity gets stolen, but, like, the the practices are putting them at risk.

[Herb Olson (Member)]: I do like the sort of notion, general notion of having that sort of organic approach to, you know, the issue and letting creating a general general standard of demand have things play out organically based on some tax situations.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Yeah. Yeah. And, again, there's I am not an expert in the UDAP and consider it for Lexenden, so I'm going off of what I've been trying to learn. But there's plenty of people who will come in and help further explain this in a way that it's much more elegant than it needs. Next one. Okay. So, seven zero six, an act relating to internet browsers and data selling. Okay. So this is this is one of those things that kind of like the data broker bill, that we don't have the Consumer Protection Act in place yet. There's, like, elements that kind of reference and build off of each other. So this is an element that kind of would build off the Consumer Protection Act, and it was it's a bill a a b five six six in California passed this past year, and it's the browser browser opt out bill. And so, essentially, the reason that this is, like, a necessary piece to add on as a building block to the Consumer Protection Act is that when we are in that bill and in the data broker bills, we are putting in mechanisms that allow that say that people will opt out of certain things, like opt out of cookie tracking, opt out of target advertising, that kind of thing. And so currently, as the internet is kind of set up, people have to opt out on every single web page. But there are browsers that could be done at the browser level. So for instance, I use DuckDuckGo. And so in DuckDuckGo, there's a setting that says opt me out of the stuff, like any of the stuff, everywhere I go. And in some cases, can see that on your phone. You can opt out of mobile advertising on your phone with the click of a box. But most of the browsers that many people are used to using, the general broader public Chrome, Safari, Edge, that kind of stuff, don't always have that type of setting. And then web pages don't always respect that global setting on browsers if people do have them. So they can ignore that if that duck duck duck sorry. Jesus. Duck duck go, brave. Any of the kind of, like, privacy browsers, when they have that setting that says anywhere I go, don't let the Internet don't let these websites track me, the websites aren't always respecting that opt out mechanism. And so this kind of puts that in place that that would be respected as a choice that a user has done globally. Yeah. Again, super, super short, three pager.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Did you say this is being done somewhere?

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: So this I I was trying to check for you before I got up here to see when it went into effect, but it was passed in California. So the governor signed it. And I just actually, I don't know if that counts. What a friend. Yeah. The

[Unidentified Committee Member]: governor signed it.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Okay, I'll double check that. And then actually, wanted to follow-up on your past one. July 1 was for the Digital Choice Act in Utah. This year, it'll go into effect.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: Are there any concerns about fusible service? For example, right now, if you use an ad blocker, you can go to sites and say, We're sorry, you're using an ad blocker, that's how we make money, so we're not going to allow you to pay for this unless you turn on your ad blocker. Is there any concerns of this happening with someone with, like, cookies where they're saying, well, since you're not gonna take your our cookies, we're not gonna we're not gonna we're not gonna do business with you.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: It does have a rough length to twenty four fifty three as far as they need to do it, otherwise they'll be in trouble under the Consumer Protection Act. I feel like that would get people to document.

[Anthony "Tony" Micklus (Member)]: Yeah, just one quick research.

[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Yeah, I'll ask though, that's a good question.

[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: The whole comment about, You're not going take my cookies.

[Edye Graning (Vice Chair)]: Food. Oh, it sucks. Copy.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So he walked on when he backed on at 08:15 to hear from the Russian Jeez. At eight six