Companies Fund Age‑Check Laws to Sell Services

Private tech firms may quietly bankroll advocacy coalitions to promote regulations that mandate services those firms (or their affiliates) sell, turning public‑safety framing into a demand‑creation strategy. The tactic mixes opaque funding, third‑party advocacy groups, and legislative proposals so that supporting organizations may not realize they are aligning with a product vendor. — If true, this pattern subverts democratic policymaking and privacy protections by converting regulation into a product market for the companies that helped write or fund the rules.