Washington – The Computer & Communications Industry Association is testifying today before the Nebraska Legislature’s Banking, Commerce and Insurance Committee in opposition to LB 1118, warning that the proposal would undermine existing efforts to combat online fraud while imposing unworkable mandates that could harm consumers, small businesses, and competition.
CCIA and its member companies share lawmakers’ goal of protecting consumers from fraudulent and deceptive advertising. Technology companies already work closely with law enforcement, advertisers, and civil society to detect and remove fraud, reject ads that violate their policies, and educate users about online scams. At scale, these efforts involve reviewing and taking action on millions of ads, accounts, and posts each year.
CCIA cautions that LB 1118 would disrupt these existing, effective approaches by imposing rigid and prescriptive requirements that do not reflect how fraud prevention works in practice. The Association is particularly concerned about:
- Broad scope and strict timelines in the bill that would incentivize the overremoval of lawful content. Requirements to investigate allegedly fraudulent advertisements within seven days and remove content “immediately” could push websites to err on the side of taking down content to avoid liability. This would harm legitimate advertisers, including small businesses, and reduce Nebraskans’ access to lawful products and services.
- Significant barriers to entry in the digital advertising market from the bill’s extensive compliance obligations would require substantial technical, legal, and staffing resources, placing disproportionate burdens on smaller companies and reducing competition. By prioritizing compliance checklists over flexible, risk-based approaches, the bill could divert resources away from the most effective fraud prevention tools and partnerships currently in use.
- Vague and subjective terms in the bill lack clear statutory standards. Requirements related to fraud detection systems, repeat offender prevention, and responses to “credible reports” would expose companies to liability based on hindsight rather than good-faith efforts, making compliance infeasible. Digital advertising services operate across state lines, and targeting only one subset of online ads risks pushing bad actors to other, less-regulated sites or offline channels rather than stopping fraudulent activity.
The following statement can be attributed to Megan Stokes, State Policy Director for the Computer & Communications Industry Association, who is testifying against the bill:
“Fraud prevention is a shared priority. Technology companies are already investing heavily in tools and partnerships to protect consumers online. Unfortunately, LB 1118 would undermine those efforts by imposing rigid requirements that encourage overremoval of lawful content, raise costs for small businesses, and reduce competition. We encourage lawmakers to focus on solutions that support effective collaboration and reflect the realities of how fraud is addressed online.”
