> Since the law passed, tech giants have pulled out their last card: pushing for an overarching federal bill.
>In doing so, the companies would be able to control their messaging through their extensive lobbying efforts, allowing them to push for a weaker statute that would nullify some of the provisions in California’s new privacy law. In doing so, companies wouldn’t have to spend a ton on more resources to ensure their compliance with a variety of statutes in multiple states.
Is it really that much easier to control a federal vs. state legislator?
I wonder if the idea might actually be to prevent the likely future scenario in which 50+ different privacy regulations need compliance. Setting a national standard could prevent such an outcome.
Privacy advocates should favor the state-by-state solution, though. The more difficult it is to comply with regulations, the more expensive it becomes to collect the data in the first place.
As the cost of compliance increases, the alternative of simply not collecting the data in the first place becomes more attractive.
But that itself can lead to unintended consequences. It would mean that only the biggest companies could afford the regulatory burden of collecting the data. And these are the very companies that have received the most negative attention.
All of which makes me wonder whether at some point we could see a private data settlement along the lines of the tobacco settlement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agre...