Dive Brief:
- Google lobbyists are on a last-ditch push to add loopholes to the country's first comprehensive privacy legislation, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), according to a Bloomberg report. The bill is set to go into effect in 2020, with only nine days before the state legislature adjourns for the year.
- Amendment language circulated by lobbyists includes a provision that would let tech companies continue to collect user data for targeted advertising, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg. The provision would in some cases impact users whether or not they've opted out.
- State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, told the outlet the proposed updates would effectively "[blow] up the entire purpose of the CCPA." According to Bloomberg, no legislators had agreed to sponsor the proposed changes.
Dive Insight:
If successful, industry efforts to undo the safeguards in the CCPA could stall a "domino effect" some industry watchers had forecasted for the state of privacy legislation.
According to CIO Dive's privacy tracker, California is the only state with comprehensive data privacy legislation green-lit. Six other state proposals are dead in action and eight more are stuck in legislative limbo. No federal bills are currently in the works.
Heavily informing the U.S. slow but steady approach to privacy legislation is Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which went into effect in 2018.
Google is just one of many companies feeling the impact of the European law, which came into effect last year. The ICO served Google a then-record-setting $57 million fine in January.
Additional fines against companies like British Airways and Marriott have since surpassed that record.