ab375 – Steve Blum's Blog

California’s consumer privacy law is a call to action for federal regulators

9 January 2020 by Steve Blum
ab375, ces2020, ftc, privacy, public policy

Federal Trade Commission chair Joseph Simons was on the undercard for Consumer Technology Association CEO Gary Shapiro’s “fireside chats” with federal policymakers at CES in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Warming up the audience ahead of Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai’s long awaited CES debut, he urged congress to give his agency the U.S. privacy cop job that California now holds by default. The FTC is already pursuing privacy enforcement actions under existing law “because the big tech platforms are becoming so consequential to our lives and so large”, Simon said.… More

Privacy is now a Made in California product

2 January 2020 by Steve Blum
ab375, becerra, ccpa, privacy, public policy

California’s data privacy law took effect yesterday, although formal regulations and active enforcement by the attorney general’s office don’t kick in until July. Even so, the AG plans to respond to complaints and monitor compliance with the bits of the law that do have teeth now. Until – unless – congress does something, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is the national standard.

If you want confirmation, just look in your email inbox. If it’s anything like mine, it’s full of CCPA notifications.… More

Privacy is too complicated for California to understand, mobile industry panel says

28 October 2019 by Steve Blum
ab375, becerra, mwc2019, privacy, public policy

California’s consumer data privacy law will be the default privacy standard across the U.S., at least for the coming year, and that’s upsetting the Washington, D.C. crowd. A panel discussion on privacy legislation at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Los Angeles last week featured three industry lobbyists, the head of an industry front organisation and a Federal Trade Commission lawyer. All of them are based in D.C., and shared Beltway-centric advice on who should be calling the shots.… More

Draft rules for businesses add enforcement detail to California’s consumer privacy law

16 October 2019 by Steve Blum
ab375, becerra, privacy, public policy

California’s tough consumer privacy law technically takes effect in January, but enforcement won’t begin until next July. The California attorney general has the job of writing the detailed rules that businesses will have to follow, and then enforcing those rules.

The first draft of those new rules was posted for public review and comment. They apply to businesses with more than $25 million in “annual gross revenues”, or collects or deals in “the personal information of 50,000 or more consumers, households, or devices”, or that deal in people’s personal information for a living.… More

Proposed California initiative would toughen and lock in consumer privacy rules

26 September 2019 by Steve Blum
ab375, privacy, public policy

The man behind California’s new privacy law doesn’t like what lobbyists are trying to do to it in Sacramento, and plans on taking his case directly voters. In 2018, Alastair Mactaggart and his organisation – Californians for Consumer Privacy – collected enough signatures to get a tough privacy law on the ballot, but withdrew the initiative after a deal with was cut with lawmakers to enact most of its provisions. But anything the legislature can do, it can also undo, so Mactaggart is going back to the voters.… More

California’s consumer data privacy law survives lobbyist blitz, more or less intact

19 September 2019 by Steve Blum
ab375, becerra, privacy, public policy

Big tech, big telecom and big business made a big push in the legislature to water down California’s landmark data privacy law, AKA the California consumer privacy act. They won some minor victories as the 2019 session ended, but did not succeed in making major changes.

A blog post by Christina Hyun Jin Kroll in the National Law Review has a good run down of the bills that did and didn’t make it out of the legislature and onto governor Gavin Newsom’s desk.… More

California sits out Google anti-trust investigation

12 September 2019 by Steve Blum
ab25, ab375, privacy, public policy

Attorneys general from forty-eight states, plus the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, launched a joint anti-trust investigation against Google on Monday, looking specifically at how the company handles online advertising. The group isn’t accusing Google of anything in particular yet, but they have their suspicions and if those prove out, an anti-trust lawsuit is sure to follow.

Only two states opted out of the investigation: Alabama and California. The absence of California attorney general Xavier Becerra from the group is puzzling to many, and he isn’t offering any hints.… More

Big broadband’s permission for, collection and use of customer info gets a federal review

5 April 2019 by Steve Blum
ab375, fcc, ftc, privacy, public policy

The privacy practices of four major broadband service providers and one big disruptor are getting a hard look from the Federal Trade Commission. Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Google Fiber were given 45 days to produce detailed information about their business practices and subscribers, with particular emphasis on how they collect information about customers, whether it’s done with genuine permission, and what they do with it.

The information demanded by the FTC includes statistics on how many people actually read privacy policies, along with what promises to be a tall stack of those policies – every single one that’s been written by the companies, including copies that might be “different from the original because of notations on the copy”.… More

Federal online privacy cop needs direction, says GAO study

18 February 2019 by Steve Blum
ab375, fcc, ftc, privacy, public policy

The federal government’s primary consumer protection agency – the Federal Trade Commission – doesn’t think too hard about policing online privacy violations, according to a report by the General Accounting Office. Generally, the FTC can act when a company engages in unfair or deceptive business practices. Figuring out what’s fair and what’s not in cyberspace is a complete puzzle, and impenetrable terms of service and other digital fine print typically give companies a get out of jail free card to companies, the report notes…

Some stakeholders said that FTC relies more heavily on its authority to take enforcement action against deceptive trade practices compared with the agency’s unfair trade practices authority.

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Spreading high tech wealth and restricting self-employment on California governor’s to do list

14 February 2019 by Steve Blum
ab375, gavin newsom, PGE, privacy, public policy

California governor Gavin Newsom took aim at technology companies during his state of the state address on Tuesday. Although bullish on California’s high tech economy, he dangled the possibility of a tax on data…

California is proud to be home to technology companies determined to change the world. But companies that make billions of dollars collecting, curating and monetizing our personal data have a duty to protect it. Consumers have a right to know and control how their data is being used.

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