Oral testimony for the Vermont data privacy and online surveillance bill

Jessamyn West · 1 May 2026

Jessamyn West did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
A person who does not pay for a product is often the product being sold to advertisers.

Their wordsif you're not paying for the product (and sometimes even if you are) then you ARE the product.
Our reading
Deceptive software design makes declining a personal-data request harder to find than agreeing to it.

Their wordsDeceptive patterns built into software designs means that the way to say "no" to a software's request (for your personal details) is often smaller and harder to see than the one where you input your personal data.
Our reading
Companies that publicly deny tracking users are often tracking them anyway, and face no real penalty for lying about it.

Their wordsWe know through research and journalism that even websites and companies which say they are not tracking people are often tracking people and we only find out through lawsuits. They just lie. There is no real penalty for lying.

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The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.