AUGUSTA, Maine — Big Tech firms are opposing a legislative push to move Maine to the front of the pack nationally on online privacy protections.

Lawmakers were back in Augusta on Tuesday to consider various nuanced arguments over  dueling data privacy bills, including sweeping one from Rep. Maggie O’Neil, D-Saco. A host of measures on the topic came out earlier this year before work on them was pushed into 2024.

Consumer Reports, the product review organization, said O’Neil’s measures “would create the most meaningful state-level privacy protections in the nation.” Tech firms and business groups prefer a Republican’s less-stringent bill that also has Democratic sponsors and mirrors more relaxed approaches taken in states in the absence of inaction at the federal level.

The Legislature’s Judiciary Committee worked Tuesday on the slate of bills, taking testimony on O’Neil’s measure to create a Data and Privacy Protection Act that would limit the use of sensitive data, restrict ads targeted at children and prevent companies from collecting information deemed unnecessary for the services they provide, among other items.

Companies that violate the data protection requirements, with the exception of small businesses, could face lawsuits from consumers and the state. It has bipartisan cosponsorship from members such as Rep. David Boyer, R-Poland, and Rep. Morgan Rielly, D-Westbrook.

maine’s fight for more regulation

O’Neil said her bill is a “heavily negotiated, bipartisan compromise” similar to a federal proposal that Big Tech supported before it stalled in Congress. But she told Judiciary Committee members those large tech firms have also been “shopping weak laws” at the state level.

“If we pass consumer protections, it sho