Our offerings, and particularly our Grow Solutions, rely on our ability to process sensitive, proprietary, confidential, and regulated information, including personal information, that belongs to us or that we, or the third parties with whom we work, handle on behalf of others such as our customers. These activities are regulated by an increasing number of various federal, state, local, and foreign privacy and data security laws and regulations. These have become increasingly stringent and continue to evolve, requiring significant resources for compliance. Any actual or perceived non-compliance could result in litigation, regulatory proceedings, fines and civil or criminal penalties, obligations to cease offerings or to substantially modify our Grow Solutions in ways that make them less effective in certain jurisdictions, negative publicity, and reduced overall demand for our platform or reduced returns on our Grow Solutions.
As we embark on a comprehensive rebuild of our machine learning stack and data infrastructure, we may encounter challenges in complying with data privacy and similar laws aimed at regulating technology.
Most jurisdictions in which we or our customers operate have adopted privacy and data security laws. For example, European privacy and data security laws, including the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation ("EU GDPR"), the European Union's Digital Services Act, the United Kingdom's GDPR ("UK GDPR") and others, impose significant and complex burdens on processing personal information and provide for robust regulatory enforcement and significant penalties for noncompliance. Regulators, courts, and platforms have increasingly interpreted the GDPR and other privacy and data security laws as requiring affirmative opt-in consent to use cookies and similar technologies for personalization, advertising, and analytics. Existing and proposed regulations could also impose onerous obligations related to AI, the use of cookies and other online tracking technologies on which our offerings rely, and online direct marketing. Any of these could increase our exposure to litigation or regulatory enforcement actions, increase our compliance costs, and adversely affect our business.
In addition, certain jurisdictions may enact or have already enacted data localization cross-border data transfer laws. For example, the cross-border data transfer landscape in Europe remains unstable despite an agreement between the U.S. and Europe, and other countries outside of Europe have enacted or are considering enacting cross border data transfer restrictions and laws requiring data residency. The EU GDPR, UK GDPR, and other European privacy and data security laws generally prohibit the transfer of personal information to countries outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"), such as the U.S., that are not considered by some authorities as generally providing an adequate level of data protection.
The various mechanisms that may be used for compliance with these data localization and other requirements are subject to legal challenges, and the future of cross-border data transfers remains uncertain in light of the evolving regulatory landscape, which could increase the cost and complexity of doing business. If we cannot maintain a valid mechanism for cross-border personal information transfers, we may face increased exposure to regulatory actions, litigation, penalties, data processing restrictions or bans, and reduced demand for our services. Loss of our ability to import personal information from Europe and elsewhere may also require us to increase our data processing capabilities outside the U.S. at significant expense.
Similarly, China's Personal Information Protection Law and Data Security Law, Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, related provincial laws, and Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, Israel's Privacy Protection Law 5741-1981, and new and emerging privacy and data security regimes in other jurisdictions in which we operate, such as China, Canada and Israel, broadly regulate processing of personal information and impose comprehensive compliance obligations and penalties.
In the U.S., federal, state, and local governments have enacted numerous privacy and data security laws, including data breach notification laws, personal information privacy laws, health information privacy laws, and consumer protection laws. For example, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA") imposes various consumer consent requirements and other restrictions on certain telemarketing activity and other communications with consumers by phone, fax or text message. TCPA violations can result in significant financial penalties, including penalties or criminal fines imposed by the Federal Communications Commission or fines of up to $1,500 per violation imposed through private litigation or by state authorities. Some states have enacted laws similar to the TCPA, with similar potential exposure. In addition, the California Consumer Privacy Act ("CCPA"), which applies to personal information of consumers, business representatives, employees, and other individuals with whom we interact, imposes a number of obligations on covered businesses, including requirements to respond to requests from California residents related to their personal information. The CCPA contains significant potential penalties for noncompliance. Additionally, the California Privacy Rights Act expanded the CCPA's requirements, including by adding new rights and establishing a new regulatory agency to implement and enforce the law. Other states are considering or have also enacted privacy and data security laws, which increase compliance costs and resources. Our actual or perceived noncompliance with these and other emerging state laws could harm our business.
We also use AI, including generative AI, and ML technologies in our products and services. The development and use of AI/ML present various privacy and data security risks that may impact our business. AI/ML are subject to privacy and data security laws, as well as increasing regulation and scrutiny. Several jurisdictions worldwide, including Europe and certain U.S. states, have proposed or enacted laws governing AI/ML. For example, the European Union is deliberating over legislation that would impose obligations on various actors in the AI value chain, and we expect other jurisdictions will adopt similar laws. Additionally, certain privacy and data security laws extend rights to consumers and regulate automated decision making in ways that may be incompatible with our use of AI/ML. These obligations may make it harder for us to conduct our business using AI/ML, lead to litigation or regulatory fines or penalties, require us to change our business practices, retrain our AI/ML, delete our models, or prevent or limit our use of AI/ML. For example, the FTC has required other companies to delete algorithms and models derived from or trained on allegedly unlawfully collected data, where it has alleged the company has violated privacy or consumer protection laws. If we cannot use AI/ML or that use is restricted, our business may be less efficient, and we may be at a competitive disadvantage.
In addition, some of our solutions employ technology to help creators build augmented and virtual reality applications, and their use to recognize and collect information about individuals could be perceived as subject to the emerging regulations relating to biometric privacy laws. Actual or perceived noncompliance may expose us to litigation and regulatory risks. There are emerging cases applying existing privacy and data security laws in the U.S., such as the federal and state wiretapping laws, in novel and potentially impactful ways that may affect our ability to offer certain solutions. The outcome of these cases could cause us to make changes to our solutions to avoid costly litigation, government enforcement actions, damages, and penalties under these laws, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and our financial condition.
Another area of increasing focus by regulators is children's privacy. Enforcement of longstanding privacy laws, such as the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA"), has increased and may continue under the new generation of privacy and data security laws and regulations, such as the GDPR, CCPA, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office Age-Appropriate Design Code ("Children's Code"), and the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act ("Design Code"), and similar laws enacted by other U.S. states. European regulators are expected to introduce guidance for age appropriate design across all countries implementing the GDPR as well. We have previously been subject to claims related to the privacy of minors predicated on COPPA and other privacy and data security laws, and we may in the future face claims under COPPA, the GDPR, the Children's Code, the CCPA, the Design Code, or other laws relating to children's privacy and data security.
In addition to increasing government regulation, we have obligations relating to privacy and data security under our published policies and documentation, contracts and applicable industry standards. For example, we are subject to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard ("PCI DSS"), which requires companies to adopt certain measures to ensure the security of cardholder information, including using and maintaining firewalls, adopting proper password protections for certain devices and software, and restricting data access. Noncompliance with PCI-DSS can result in penalties ranging from $5,000 to $100,000 per month by credit card companies, litigation, damage to our reputation, and revenue losses.
Our business is materially reliant on revenue from behavioral, interest-based, or tailored advertising (collectively, "targeted advertising"), but delivering targeted advertisements is becoming increasingly difficult due to changes to our ability to gather information about user behavior through third party platforms, new laws and regulations, and consumer resistance. Major technology platforms on which we rely to gather information about consumers have adopted or proposed measures to provide consumers with additional control over the collection, use, and sharing of their personal data for targeted advertising purposes. For example, Apple allows users to easily opt-out of activity tracking across devices, which has impacted and may continue to impact our business. Similarly, Google announced similar plans to adopt additional privacy controls on its Android devices to allow users to limit sharing of their data with third parties and reduce cross-device tracking for advertising purposes. Additionally, Google has announced that it intends to phase out third-party cookies in its Chrome browser, which could make it more difficult for us to target advertisements. Other browsers, such as Firefox and Safari, have already adopted similar measures.
In addition, legislative proposals and present laws and regulations regulate the use of cookies and other tracking technologies, electronic communications, and marketing. For example, in the EEA and the U.K., regulators are increasingly focusing on compliance with requirements related to the targeted advertising ecosystem. European regulators have issued significant fines in certain circumstances where the regulators alleged that appropriate consent was not obtained in connection with targeted advertising activities. It is anticipated that the ePrivacy Regulation and national implementing laws will replace the current national laws implementing the ePrivacy Directive, which may require us to make significant operational changes. In the U.S., state privacy laws, including the CCPA, grant residents the right to opt-out of most forms of targeted advertising (or to opt-in, in the case of residents under age 16). Some of the laws also require covered businesses to honor certain user-enabled browser signals, such as the Global Privacy Control. Partially as a result of these developments, individuals are becoming increasingly resistant to the collection, use, and sharing of personal data to deliver targeted advertising. Individuals are now more aware of options related to consent, "do not track" mechanisms (such as browser signals from the Global Privacy Control), and "ad-blocking" software to prevent the collection of their personal information for targeted advertising purposes. As a result, we have been and may be required to change the way we market our offerings, and any of these developments or changes could materially impair our ability to reach new or existing customers or otherwise negatively affect our operations.
Although we endeavor to comply with these obligations, we may have actually or allegedly failed to do so or have otherwise processed data improperly. The requirements imposed by rapidly changing privacy and data security laws, platform providers, and application stores require us to dedicate significant resources to compliance, and could also limit our ability to operate, harm our reputation, reduce demand for our solutions, and subject us to regulatory enforcement action, private litigation, and other liability. Such occurrences could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.