In a report from NPR yesterday, following Europe's new privacy laws that went into effect on Friday, California is considering new legislation regarding online privacy. The California Consumer Privacy Act will likely be on the ballot in November, and will require business' to have a "clear and conspicuous link" on their homepage titled "Do Not Sell My Personal Information." The link would take users to a page where they can opt-out of having their personal data sold or shared. While the law would not prevent companies from collecting users' data in order to target ads, it would prevent that data from being shared or sold.
Sounds fantastic to me, and as the article states, hopefully if this law goes into effect in California, it will just be implimented nationally instead of websites trying to use IPs to know if the user is on the site from California. I look forward to hearing how anyone can argue that the option to opt out is a bad thing. Thanks to cageymaru for the story.
One of the initiative's biggest backers is Alastair Mactaggart, a San Francisco real estate developer. Mactaggart recalls the moment about four years ago that turned him into a privacy advocate. He asked a Google engineer at a cocktail party whether he should be worried about his privacy. "He said, 'Oh if you just knew how much we knew about you, you'd be really worried,' " recalls Mactaggart.
Sounds fantastic to me, and as the article states, hopefully if this law goes into effect in California, it will just be implimented nationally instead of websites trying to use IPs to know if the user is on the site from California. I look forward to hearing how anyone can argue that the option to opt out is a bad thing. Thanks to cageymaru for the story.
One of the initiative's biggest backers is Alastair Mactaggart, a San Francisco real estate developer. Mactaggart recalls the moment about four years ago that turned him into a privacy advocate. He asked a Google engineer at a cocktail party whether he should be worried about his privacy. "He said, 'Oh if you just knew how much we knew about you, you'd be really worried,' " recalls Mactaggart.