REPORT: How Big Tech’s Lobbying Blitzes Captured State Privacy Laws

As Congress begins work to draft a comprehensive federal data privacy bill, lawmakers naturally look to states for guidance on model frameworks. The problem: dozens of state-level bills have been quietly captured by Big Tech and rewritten to favor corporate priorities over the public interest. A new Issue One report not only documents the tech industry’s playbook and key case studies of captured bills but also quantifies their influence with fresh lobbying analysis of seven states.

Laboratories of Capture: How the Tech Lobby Shapes State Data Privacy Laws reveals how initially strong privacy proposals were rewritten behind closed doors, sidelined by industry-friendly alternatives, or stalled under coordinated opposition from trade associations, chambers of commerce, and multi-industry coalitions with deep ties to the tech sector. Focusing on Washington, Virginia, Connecticut, Alaska, Utah, Montana, and Maine, Issue One shows how the same lobbying playbook — along with several newly reported tactics — was repeatedly deployed to influence legislation, overwhelm small, understaffed legislatures, and rewrite bills behind the scenes.

“Big Tech companies are rewriting the rules of the road in states across the country,” said Technology Reform Policy Lead Isabel Sunderland. “As these companies profit from collecting and monetizing our sensitive personal information, they are fundamentally shaping the conditions under which tech policy debates occur. This report exposes how coordinated and well-resourced that effort really is. When a handful of enormously wealthy companies can dominate statehouses with lobbyists, lawyers, and front groups, the American people are left on the sidelines.”

The report also offers concrete recommendations for federal and state policymakers, civil society and advocacy groups, journalists, small and local business associations, concerned constituents, and grassroots organizers to counter this influence. Key strategies include increasing transparency around who drafts legislation, limiting industry’s role in shaping bills, strengthening enforcement, and building independent policy expertise.

“The fight over privacy revealed how the tech lobby operates when locked behind closed doors,” Sunderland added. “With AI and data centers now at the center of the next wave of state policy battles, the stakes are even higher. The question is whether the rules of our digital future will be written in public — or manipulated out of view.”

The full report, Laboratories of Capture: How the Tech Lobby Shapes State Data Privacy Laws, is available here.