“Driven by everything from the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandals, to social media-driven fake news concerns, consumers and legislators are starting to push back on the goose that laid the golden digital egg,” Bob O’Donnell writes for Tech.pinions. “There’s growing awareness of the incredible power and influence that tech companies have on nearly every aspect of our lives, and alarm bells are growing louder.”
“The most recent evidence was the swift and unanimous passage of the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (officially labeled AB 375), a wide-ranging piece of legislation that was approved in late June by the CA State Senate and Assembly and signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown,” O’Donnell writes. “Conceptually similar to the recently instituted GDPR data privacy regulations of the European Union, the new law gives California-based consumers the right to know about all data being collected on them, the right to refuse sale of that data, the right to delete that data, and much more. As with GDPR, companies that don’t comply are potentially subject to large fines.”
“In comment after comment posted in response to online articles that covered the news of the legislation’s passage, there was/is a deep sense of betrayal and mistrust directed towards many large tech companies, such as Facebook and Google,” O’Donnell writes. “The combination of all the various data privacy and security scandals seems to have reached a tipping point, and consumers are both starting to demand more control over their personal data and expect more accountability from companies who collect it.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Privacy and control of personal data is very, very bad for the likes of Google and Facebook and that’s a very, very good thing for everyone else, including Apple Inc.
SEE ALSO:
U.S. House Republicans demand answers from Apple, Google on privacy, data practices – July 9, 2018
California lawmakers approve data-privacy bill despite opposition from Google, Facebook, advertisers – June 29, 2018
Apple highlights user privacy as Facebook exec steps down – June 14, 2018
Looks pretty good for Apple now doesn’t it..
Anything that’s bad for Google or any capitalizing & like-minded data theft company is good for humanity.
Most of the media poo pooed privacy concerns saying people know what they were signing up for, but that is simply not the case.
Take a look at all the advertising for ISPs and any online service you can name. Nowhere does it explicitly state in plain language that they would be using your data to target you for ads and would also be selling it to third parties.
I would also remind readers that one of the largest customers of data miners and online stalking software are the various levels of law enforcement. They can easily buy data that they are forbidden to collect on you without a court order or search warrant on their own. The existence of these digital stalkers have seriously eroded your rights against self-incrimination.
And, as far as I know, no law explicitly prevents law-enforcement or government agencies from collecting extracurricular information through social media. It’s almost as though our elected representatives, and their appointees, get to operate freely through channels not described by pre-internet law. What’s more profound is the Faustian power of certain US supreme court justices allegiant to the Constitutional doctrine of original intent. Are they going to continue to operate under the assumptions of 1789? Refusing to update the bill of rights in response to technological changes that alter the social equation is a cynical cop-out, at best, a genuflection to the powers that be, at worst. – In my humble opinion and limited understanding.
I agree. Law enforcement no longer needs a search warrant – they can just get the data they need from Google/Facebook/etc. This definitely needs to change.
And the NSA, CIA, DIA, et al “…can easily buy data that they are forbidden to collect on you without a court order or search warrant on their own. The existence of these digital stalkers have seriously eroded your rights against self-incrimination.”
This problem is huge and insidious and expanding; metastasizing.
… California actually did something good for people.
Once again, Cali leads and sets the trend for other states to follow.
You’re joking, right?
Cats outta the bag for a long time now, your privacy is history, too little, too late. Fucking California pols, scumbags, the lot of them.
The article explains how this law is conceptually similar to GDPR which is already in force in Europe. So in reality Europe set the trend which California has followed and other states might in turn follow.
“Conceptually similar to the recently instituted GDPR data privacy regulations of the European Union”
Nice to see how the free and civilized world continues their leadership role.