United States of America: Governor of Nebraska signed Age-Appropriate Online Design Code Act

On 14 April 2026, the Bill amending the Age-Appropriate Online Design Code Act was signed by the Governor of Nebraska. The Act gives minors under 18 control over how they interact with covered online services, sets rules on how those services may collect and handle minors' personal data, and equips parents of children under 13 with tools to oversee and safeguard their child's use of such platforms. The Bill broadens the previous applicability threshold, which had required companies to satisfy five cumulative criteria, including deriving at least 50% of annual revenue from selling or sharing personal data. Under the amended Bill, the provisions apply to any company that conducts business in Nebraska, generates a majority of its annual revenue from online services, determines the purposes and means of processing consumers' personal data, and either exceeds USD 25 million in annual gross revenue or annually processes the personal data of 50,000 or more consumers, households, or devices. The Bill also expands the definition of "covered design feature" from five items to eleven, adding auto-playing media, engagement quantification tools such as visible likes and comment counts, gamification elements including streaks and badges, virtual currencies, features exploiting ephemerality to prompt urgent use, barriers to account deletion, and artificial intelligence-driven features designed to elicit feelings of intimacy from users. Two new prohibitions are introduced, preventing covered online services from offering covered minors a single setting that reduces all default privacy protections simultaneously, and from prompting or requesting covered minors to weaken their privacy settings unless strictly necessary to access a feature the minor has explicitly requested. Additionally, covered online services are now required to provide a prominent and accessible tool enabling covered minors to request the unpublishing or deletion of their account, with such requests to be honoured within 15 days of receipt. The Bill enters into force three months after the Nebraska legislature's adjournment date of 17 April 2026.