More Than 1,400 Vermonters from 177 Towns Tell House Committee: Pass Strong Data Privacy Protections
Vermont Business Magazine As the Vermont House Commerce and Economic Development Committee prepares to vote on S.71, the Vermont Data Privacy and Online Surveillance Act, a coalition of more than 1,400 Vermonters from every county and more than 150 towns across the state, including more than 100 Vermont businesses, has delivered an open letter May 6 demanding the Committee pass Draft 2.3 without weakening amendments.
The letter, organized through the People vs Big Tech town hall series, represents one of the largest grassroots mobilizations around data privacy in Vermont history. Signatories span every county in the state and include farmers, small business owners, health care workers, educators, veterans, parents, and neighbors united by a single message: our data is not for sale.
"A weak privacy bill is not a compromise," said State Rep. Monique Priestley. "It is a gift to the companies that are already taking our data, our customers, and our autonomy. Vermonters are asking this Committee to do better than that."
"Data privacy is a consumer protection issue, full stop," said Zach Tomanelli, Consumer Protection Advocate at the Vermont Public Interest Research Group. "The profiles being built about Vermonters are shaping what they pay, what jobs they see, and whether they qualify for credit. That is not acceptable, and Vermonters are saying so loud and clear."
The letter comes in direct response to a lobbying campaign asking the Committee to adopt a weaker version of the bill modeled on Connecticut's 2022 data privacy law. Connecticut's own Attorney General publicly stated last year that the law has serious gaps, that too many residents fall through its exemptions, and that it needs to be significantly stronger. An independent analysis gave the Connecticut law a D grade.
The coalition letter names the stakes plainly. Every search, website visit, and app interaction feeds a machine that profiles Vermonters, adjusts the prices they see, influences whether they are called back for jobs, and determines whether they qualify for loans and insurance, all without their knowledge or consent. In January 2026, ICE issued a formal Request for Information to advertising technology companies asking how the same infrastructure used to deliver targeted ads could be repurposed for federal immigration enforcement.
Vermont's small businesses are also calling out the system being used against them. Tracking pixels and third-party cookies installed on Vermont business websites quietly hand customer data to Google and Meta, who use that data to sell targeted advertisements to those businesses' larger competitors. Vermont's own Attorney General has recorded 2,285 data breaches in the state since June 2022, including 147 at nonprofit organizations.
The letter warns the Committee explicitly against passing a weakened version of the bill. "A bad privacy bill is worse than no privacy bill," the letter states. "It will be cited for years, by industry lobbyists, in court filings, and in future legislative sessions, as proof that Vermont already addressed data privacy. The extraction will continue behind a veneer of compliance."
The letter also calls out the industry lobbying campaign by name, noting that groups claiming to represent Vermont small businesses are funded by Amazon and Google. A 2023 report by Issue One documented this as a standard industry playbook used in state after state to weaken data privacy legislation.
Draft 2.3 of S.71 would establish meaningful data minimization requirements, strong protections for sensitive data including health, location, financial, and identity information, and clear definitions distinguishing surveillance-based targeted advertising from the first-party and contextual advertising Vermont businesses rely on. The bill aligns with standards passed in Maryland and advances principles Vermont already applied to children's data through the Kids Code, signed by Governor Scott in June 2025.
The full text of the letter and the list of signatories are available at:
https://peoplevsbigtech.com/wp-content/uploads/PVBT-S.71_Letter_to_House_Commerce.pdf
About People vs Big Tech: People vs Big Tech is a Vermont town hall series led by Vermont State Representative Monique Priestley, Zach Tomanelli of Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG), and allied organizations committed to protecting Vermont communities from unchecked corporate power over personal data. The series held events in ten communities across Vermont in fall and winter of 2025 and is planning additional events for summer 2026.
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