Privacy is one of the fundamental issues in tech policy. And yet, in the United States progress on this issue has been elusive at the federal level, even as Europe has forged ahead with its General Data Protection Regulation or (GDPR) and now the Digital Markets Act, which will reinforce the privacy protections afforded EU citizens under GPDR with new provisions.

And yet there are bills before Congress that could change things in the U.S.- such as the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act, which was introduced earlier this year by Democrats. At the time, Senator Corey Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, said that “The hoarding of people’s personal data not only abuses privacy, but also drives the spread of misinformation, domestic extremism, racial division, and violence.” 

To talk more about the history of how we ended up with an internet bought and paid for by surveillance advertising and what might drive reform, I spoke to two experts in the field, Dr. Nathalie Maréchal & Dr. Matthew Crain.