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It’s 2025 and federal data privacy legislation remains stalled in Congress. The result? A patchwork of evolving state-by-state regulations are forcing companies to learn and relearn all over again.
Still, a general theme has clearly emerged. Consumers everywhere are demanding more control over their personal information, and regulatory bodies are increasingly catching up to give them what they want.
So how did we get here and what does it mean for the digital future?
In 2018, The European Union set the tone for the shifts we are seeing today when they enacted their General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Many of the digital privacy provisions in the GDPR went on to influence the 2020 California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the subsequent California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA).
In the years that followed, other states such as Virginia, Colorado and Connecticut adopted similar approaches to their own privacy regulations. Each state has its own provisions, but they all push back against unrestricted browser tracking, ad targeting and the sale of personal information.
Today, a total of 20 U.S. states have enacted some form of comprehensive consumer data privacy laws, each with unique requirements and protections.
This leaves 30 states still working toward forming their rules. But fewer restrictions haven’t made things any easier for digital businesses. In fact, the wide disparities between states only add more complexity as brands struggle to develop methods for global privacy compliance.
The patchwork nature of state privacy regulations presents some serious compliance challenges for businesses, especially those operating in multiple locations across the country.
Luckily, there are a few consistent principles across the board:
Ad Opt-Outs
Most state privacy laws in the U.S. have adopted some form of opt-out consent model. This approach allows businesses to collect and process personal data by default, requiring consumers to take active steps to prevent their data from being sold or used for targeted advertising.
Some states also include provisions requiring companies to receive and honor third-party signals that allow consumers to bypass site-specific opt-outs and express their preferences through simple browser settings or other mechanisms.
Tracking Transparency
While the specifics still vary by state, businesses are basically required at this point to disclose their data collection practices and provide consumers with some ability to deny permission for user tracking.
The rise of DNT and GPC signals are also becoming prevalent in this area, allowing consumers to more easily manage their tracking preferences without jumping through new hurdles for every new site they visit.
But are companies actually honoring these rules with any real consistency? That’s another story.
As it turns out, non-compliance is both common and costly, with lawsuits, fines and regulatory scrutiny becoming the new reality for companies that fail to follow the rules.
This is where privacy compliance teams enter the chat. Among other things, these teams work to ensure digital opt-outs and tracking preferences are not only collected, but correctly processed for every single user.
Many businesses have begun to rely on third party legal firms to handle this difficult compliance work. Others have chosen to stand up their own internal privacy teams.
Either way, it’s difficult and tedious work. Gaps can be very hard to find and right now the demand for effective privacy compliance seems to be outpacing the supply.
That’s where we come in.
Here at Boltive, we were early to the privacy party. We quickly realized the patented AI-engine we use to help companies deal with digital ad security could also be aimed at this problem.
So, we created Privacy Guard—a single tool powerful enough to proactively find and fix privacy compliance gaps in any website, mobile app or digital ad campaign.
We can’t fix Congress, or the fragmented regulatory landscape (at least not yet). But we have created the perfect tool for helping privacy teams—internal or external—keep track of compliance, while automating tedious manual QA and research tasks.
The result? Privacy compliance that is better, faster and built for the future—whatever it may be.
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