How the tech industry is sewing confusion about privacy laws

Alastair Mactaggart founded and bankrolled the privacy activism organization that pushed California’s landmark privacy law–the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)–into the books in 2018. The law spurred the introduction of similar privacy bills in states around the country, and it will likely give shape to an eventual federal privacy law. As the story goes, Mactaggart, who made his fortune in the Bay Area real estate market, spoke to a Google employee at a cocktail party in 2016 who told him he’d be surprised at the amount of data the search giant had on him. Alarmed, Mactaggart and his friend Rick Arney hatched the idea of proposing a ballot measure to ensure privacy rights for Californians, and signed on attorney Mary Stone Ross to help shape a new law. The ballot measure eventually gave rise to a comparable bill in the state legislature, which, despite heavy blowback from the tech and telecom lobbies, was quickly passed and signed into law by then-governor Jerry Brown. The CCPA gives Californians the right to know what data tech companies like Google and Facebook are collecting on them, the right to stop that data from being shared or sold, and the right to sue if a tech company fails to protect their personal data. It was the most extensive consumer privacy law in the country at the time. Mactaggart’s group, Californians for Consumer Privacy , pushed another ballot measure in 2020, Proposition 24, that strengthened the CCPA. Voters passed the measure, and the proposition became the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), which goes into effect at the start of 2023. The law also establishes a new privacy agency called the California Privacy Protection Agency, with a 5-member board and a $10 million annual budget. While a number of states have followed California in passing their own consumer privacy laws , the vast majority of states still have weak or nonexistent privacy laws. Now Democrats and Republicans in Congress are trying to how to work together to pass a national privacy bill . A number of bills were floated in 2020, along with a major bill (from Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash.) in 2021, but none has advanced very far. Meanwhile, the tech and online advertising industries are lobbying hard for a weak federal privacy law that might preempt stronger state laws, such as California’s. I spoke with Mactaggart about the state of data privacy today, and about the chances for a meaningful federal privacy law in the near future. The interview has been edited for length and clarity

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How the tech industry is sewing confusion about privacy laws