Small business owners returned to Capitol Hill on May 16, 2026, to press lawmakers to ensure that overly restrictive data privacy bills do not shut Main Street out of the digital ads that keep their stores open. Days after National Small Business Week wrapped, entrepreneurs led by Internet for Growth’s Brendan Thomas told congressional offices that the SECURE Data Act and its companion, the GUARD Financial Data Act, need carve-outs for small operators.
For self-employed owners and solo founders, the message lands at a pressure point. Social ads, search ads, and targeted reach are how solo operators compete with national brands, and any rule that raises the cost of those channels or shrinks the audience they can reach hits the smallest businesses first.
What The Bills Actually Do
House Republicans introduced the SECURE Data Act in April 2026 to replace the current patchwork of state privacy laws with a single national standard for how businesses collect, store, and use consumer data. The companion GUARD Financial Data Act would set parallel rules for financial information.
Both bills are framed around protecting consumer data, with particular focus on minors. Small business advocates support a single federal standard in principle, but argue the current draft’s opt-out provisions on targeted advertising could shrink the addressable audience for every small business running digital campaigns.
Why This Matters For Self-Employed Owners
Natania Julius, who runs an online corporate gifting shop with her mother in Madison, Wisconsin, told reporters her business depends on social ads, search engine optimization, and digital marketing to find clients. Cut those tools or make them less effective, and customers will stop discovering her shop.
The same pattern shows up across the self-employed world. Etsy makers, Shopify sellers, solo consultants, and service freelancers all use the same paid and organic digital channels and face the same loss if targeted ads are stripped down. Internet for Growth’s polling found that 94 percent of voters consider digital tools important for small-business survival, with 91 percent saying personalized ads help them find local businesses.
What Self-Employed Owners Should Do Next
Owners who run digital campaigns should map which channels actually drive revenue this month, write down the cost per acquisition for each, and save the snapshot. That baseline matters because any privacy law that passes will move the cost line on at least one channel, and a written before-and-after is the cleanest way to negotiate budgets with yourself later.
Self-employed pros who care about the outcome can also reach their representatives directly. Internet for Growth is collecting small-business voices, and a one-paragraph note from an owner with revenue at stake carries more weight than a generic form letter.
What To Watch Next
Both SECURE and GUARD have a long path through committee, markups, and floor votes before they reach the President. Watch for any amendment that names a small-business carve-out, particularly around opt-out thresholds and revenue cutoffs, since those are the levers that will decide whether solo owners absorb the rules or get caught by them. Owners tracking how solo founders are building lean digital businesses should add this bill to their dashboards.
Also, watch the states. If federal preemption fails or stalls, state-level digital ad taxes like Washington State’s 6.5 percent sales tax on advertising services will keep multiplying, and solo operators selling across state lines will absorb the compliance bill in 2026 and 2027.
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya: Unsplash
