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California passes bill to make it easier to delete data from data brokers

latimes.com

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Re: California passes bill to make it easier to delete data from data brokers

#21

Post by gochi »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #16

I've been grateful as a Californian for our regulations of online businesses. I regularly invoke our right-to-unsubscribe and the CCPA gives us something similar to the GDPR in various ways. To what extent do companies extend these rights to all Americans because it's easier than building a California-specific version of a website or online product?

Likely depends on the scale of the company. The likes of Google (I know they aren't specifically on the line for this law anyways) will have more than enough resources to ensure you're a California resident before allowing such. Hard to see others caring and just adhering your request as a non-California resident when it's always a small margin of people that even take advantage of privacy respecting laws.

Re: California passes bill to make it easier to delete data from data brokers

#22

Post by chimeracoder »

hef19898 wrote: post #18
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard answer (at least for Google, not sure about Facebook) is that they're not considered data brokers because they only sell ad placement based on the data, not the data itself.

One could make a case for splitting the data collection activities from the ad sales business as part of an anti trust case. Or pass regulations and laws to that effect.

> One could make a case for splitting the data collection activities from the ad sales business as part of an anti trust case. Or pass regulations and laws to that effect.

That would be a net negative for privacy, because it would mean more parties having access to your data (without your consent or even knowledge). And given the state of security in ad-tech aside from Google, that means the chances of your data getting breached and leaked would increase exponentially.

Re: California passes bill to make it easier to delete data from data brokers

#23

Post by Alupis »

gochi wrote: post #21
NelsonMinar wrote: post #16

I've been grateful as a Californian for our regulations of online businesses. I regularly invoke our right-to-unsubscribe and the CCPA gives us something similar to the GDPR in various ways. To what extent do companies extend these rights to all Americans because it's easier than building a California-specific version of a website or online product?

Likely depends on the scale of the company. The likes of Google (I know they aren't specifically on the line for this law anyways) will have more than enough resources to ensure you're a California resident before allowing such. Hard to see others caring and just adhering your request as a non-California resident when it's always a small margin of people that even take advantage of privacy respecting laws.

Exactly. The Parent comment strikes me as being very naïve.

Right to Unsubscribe? Gmail and other email providers do this for you even if you are not a CA resident and even if the Marketer does not have a built-in Unsubscribe link. From a Marketer perspective, you cost money to send emails to, and if you are not going to open, they kind of don't want you on the list anyway.

CCPA == GDPR? Not even close. Majority of CA businesses do not reach the compliance threshold and therefore do not have to or will not comply with requests. Additionally, you have no way to validate if the request was actually carried out. The company's "best efforts" to remove data from their systems is all that's required at best - and a lot of data can be retained for valid business reasons.

Lastly - despite what CA residents believe (and similar to EU residents with GDPR) - CA laws do not apply to the rest of the country simply because they are unenforceable except in the most egregious cases - and even then it would have to be a very large business anyway.

> because it's easier than building a California-specific version of a website or online product

Nobody is doing this in practice. At best, they use some GeoIP thing or if you are logged into an account (which means they have your data anyway). The law does not require them to validate the user anyway, so it's all "best effort" again which usually means low effort.

But hey, if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy believing these things - more power to you.

Re: California passes bill to make it easier to delete data from data brokers

#24

Post by callalex »

Alupis wrote: post #23
gochi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely depends on the scale of the company. The likes of Google (I know they aren't specifically on the line for this law anyways) will have more than enough resources to ensure you're a California resident before allowing such. Hard to see others caring and just adhering your request as a non-California resident when it's always a small margin of people that even take advantage of privacy respecting laws.

Exactly. The Parent comment strikes me as being very naïve. Right to Unsubscribe? Gmail and other email providers do this for you even if you are not a CA resident and even if the Marketer does not have a built-in Unsubscribe link. From a Marketer perspective, you cost money to send emails to, and if you are not going to open, they kind of don't want you on the list anyway. CCPA == GDPR? Not even close. Majority of C…

The right to unsubscribe being discussed here has nothing to do with emails. It states that if you paid for a subscription online, you must be able to cancel it online within a few clicks as well. No “call us” or “send a registered letter during a full moon and low tide only” nonsense. It’s really great.

Re: California passes bill to make it easier to delete data from data brokers

#25

Post by callalex »

addaon wrote: post #20
kepler1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, that spurred me to read about it given the link above. > " This bill would require the agency to establish, by January 1, 2026, an accessible deletion mechanism that, among other things, allows a consumer, through a single verifiable consumer request, to request that every data broker that maintains any personal information delete any personal information related to that consumer held by the data broker or as…

Deleting data from backups (or, more often, aging out backups and deleting them wholesale) is usually a batch process. You really don't want to have to do online modification of backups... they're not really backups at that point. 45 days doesn't seem unreasonable.

If it’s so much work to handle the data responsibly, maybe it shouldn’t be collected in the first place.

Re: California passes bill to make it easier to delete data from data brokers

#26

Post by Alupis »

callalex wrote: post #24
Alupis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The Parent comment strikes me as being very naïve. Right to Unsubscribe? Gmail and other email providers do this for you even if you are not a CA resident and even if the Marketer does not have a built-in Unsubscribe link. From a Marketer perspective, you cost money to send emails to, and if you are not going to open, they kind of don't want you on the list anyway. CCPA == GDPR? Not even close. Majority of C…

The right to unsubscribe being discussed here has nothing to do with emails. It states that if you paid for a subscription online, you must be able to cancel it online within a few clicks as well. No “call us” or “send a registered letter during a full moon and low tide only” nonsense. It’s really great.

> No “call us” or “send a registered letter during a full moon and low tide only” nonsense. It’s really great.

I am very skeptical even this is as great as some think. Outside CA, most companies can simply ignore these "viral" style laws with no consequences.

Re: California passes bill to make it easier to delete data from data brokers

#28

Post by callalex »

Alupis wrote: post #26
callalex wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right to unsubscribe being discussed here has nothing to do with emails. It states that if you paid for a subscription online, you must be able to cancel it online within a few clicks as well. No “call us” or “send a registered letter during a full moon and low tide only” nonsense. It’s really great.

> No “call us” or “send a registered letter during a full moon and low tide only” nonsense. It’s really great. I am very skeptical even this is as great as some think. Outside CA, most companies can simply ignore these "viral" style laws with no consequences.

I can assure you as a Californian that this law is not ignored. They are taking payment from my credit card so they can’t claim ignorance of my California address.

Re: California passes bill to make it easier to delete data from data brokers

#29

Post by Alupis »

callalex wrote: post #28
Alupis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No “call us” or “send a registered letter during a full moon and low tide only” nonsense. It’s really great. I am very skeptical even this is as great as some think. Outside CA, most companies can simply ignore these "viral" style laws with no consequences.

I can assure you as a Californian that this law is not ignored. They are taking payment from my credit card so they can’t claim ignorance of my California address.

There's no citizen enforcement clause for most of these laws and therefore this mostly means nothing - and where there is it just turns into a money grab/shakedown by bottom feeding lawyers (see existing FAL & P65 suits). Suits get settled, lawyers get paid, plaintiff gets a cut, no wrongdoing is admitted, and nothing changes.

It's not about claiming ignorance. It's about not caring about CA viral laws and CA's inability to effectively enforce them around the world.

Much like how most companies laugh when some EU citizens tries to flex GDPR in the US... hilarious unless you're Google...

People lock-in on the intent and names of these things and believe they've "won" the privacy war. Just like the "Inflation Reduction Act" these laws do very little if anything for their namesake.

Re: California passes bill to make it easier to delete data from data brokers

#30

Post by callalex »

Alupis wrote: post #29
callalex wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can assure you as a Californian that this law is not ignored. They are taking payment from my credit card so they can’t claim ignorance of my California address.

There's no citizen enforcement clause for most of these laws and therefore this mostly means nothing - and where there is it just turns into a money grab/shakedown by bottom feeding lawyers (see existing FAL & P65 suits). Suits get settled, lawyers get paid, plaintiff gets a cut, no wrongdoing is admitted, and nothing changes. It's not about claiming ignorance. It's about not caring about CA viral laws and CA's inabi…

It’s really odd to me that you are telling me that my lived experience is false and impossible. Every subscription I have made since this law passed, I have been able to cancel online. This includes newspapers, store club memberships, random podcasts and other online entertainment, educational software, and more.

Sometimes the government really does work for the people. It is actually possible.

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