Mass. data privacy law would harm small businesses

Adebukola Ajao is marketing director at Destiny African Market in Randolph.

Last year, I was worried that a proposed federal law called the American Privacy Rights Act would hurt my family’s African foods shop in Randolph. I voiced my concerns to lawmakers, explaining that the bill would overregulate how we could use data and make it much harder for us to connect with the right customers and grow our business. Many other small-business owners voiced similar concerns, and fortunately, the bill didn’t pass.

I thought my data-legislation worries were over, but I was wrong. State senators have passed the Massachusetts Data Privacy Act, a bill that’s almost as extreme, and now it’s up to the House to decide what to do next. Among other things, the bill says we can only use customers’ data to provide products and services customers have specifically requested. Those restrictions would badly hurt Massachusetts small businesses, and they’d be especially hard on businesses — like my family’s — that serve ethnic communities.

My mom opened our African grocery store in 2021, after recovering from a near-fatal bout of COVID-19. She’d run a successful catering business for decades but wanted to do more for the Boston-area African community. Most of all, she wanted to help local Africans find foods — like savory moin moin and spicy kilishi — that reminded them of home.

Like many small, immigrant-owned businesses, our advertising budget is tiny so we need to make every dollar count. That makes data-powered digital advertising essential, because it allows us to connect with the customers most likely to be interested in our products. We can’t see anyone’s personally identifiable information; instead, digital advertising tools send our ads to people whose online activity indicates a good match for our offerings. So if someone has been searching for coconut chin chin, they might get an ad for our shop. But if their searches don’t indicate interest in African foods, we won’t waste money sending them ads.

Digital advertising tools also provide us with crucial data analytics, showing us which ads are most effective and how people arrived at our website — whether by clicking an ad or searching the web. Personal information remains private, and those data-based insights save us time and money and help us make smart marketing decisions.

Data also allow us to provide personalized service for our customers. For example, if a customer buys Banku mix flour, we might send a follow-up email asking if they’d like ingredients for okra soup, which complements Banku. Those little touches help us build strong customer relationships and strengthen community ties — a top priority for immigrant entrepreneurs like my mom.

I wish lawmakers understood how valuable data are to small ethnic businesses. Our costs have skyrocketed because of new tariffs on African imports. If our ability to use data to power our ads is restricted — and if we lose some of our data-based marketing insights — we’ll have a much harder time reaching the right audience. We’ll have to spend more money to reach fewer customers, which will hurt our bottom line. Bigger businesses might be able to absorb those costs or hire marketing specialists. But small businesses like ours — with minimal budgets and limited access to financing — don’t have that luxury.

Lawmakers may say the bills exempt small businesses, but that’s not really the case. Small businesses have to work with larger digital partners to do things like send data-powered ads and manage email marketing campaigns. Those larger digital-service providers will have to comply with the new laws, and they’ll likely pass their compliance costs along to us. At the same time, our marketing will be less effective. That’s a tough combination for a small business.

Massachusetts small-business owners need balanced data privacy laws that protect consumers while allowing local shops and restaurants to collect and use basic consumer data. I urge Massachusetts lawmakers to reject this bill and strive for less extreme data regulations that benefit all Massachusetts residents.

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