
Why California's Privacy Law Won't Hurt Facebook or Google - octosphere
https://www.wired.com/story/why-californias-privacy-law-wont-hurt-facebook-or-google/
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nolemurs
The tone of this article makes it sound like it's a bad thing that Facebook
and Google won't be much affected by this law, but I don't really think it is.

The reason the big players aren't much affected is that they've already had to
make huge privacy changes in response to GDPR. They've already paid those
costs.

A lot of what you see about privacy is uninformed fear mongering. This article
is a good example: it seems to take it as a given that anything that doesn't
substantially increase privacy protections is a bad thing, but no reasons are
given, and the costs aren't weighed. In reality there's a balance to be had
here and we need to be looking at both sides. I'm not saying there's nothing
to fear, just that there's a real disconnect between what the media's afraid
of and what we should actually fear, and there's a very real danger of
legislative changes doing more harm than good.

GDPR actually provides some pretty substantial privacy guarantees and I think
we should wait to see the effects of GDPR play out before we go fiddling with
the system more.

~~~
jodrellblank
It seems to take it as a given that anything that doesn't substantially reduce
exploitation is a bad thing, but no reasons are given, and the costs aren't
weighed. In reality there's a balance to be had here and we need to be looking
at both sides. There's a very real danger of legislative changes doing more
harm than good.

Sure, a few billion humans might be being invasively tracked and having their
data sold, and their mental biases ruthlessly exploited for profit, addictive
behaviours encouraged with personalised alerts, but you've got to look at both
sides - on the other hand, a few companies are making a HUGE PILE OF MONEY,
and I think everyone can agree that's unquestionably a good thing. (No reasons
are given).

~~~
jack9
> a few companies are making a HUGE PILE OF MONEY, and I think everyone can
> agree that's unquestionably a good thing.

Unquestionably? No, it's a bad thing for the monopolies to maintain through
capitalism's achille's heel. Weighing the costs would require insight into the
cost-benefits of those mega-corporations, which we will never see.

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sroussey
It’s a start. I wish the CCPA took a few stronger stances to match GDPR for
end users, and consistency in compliance would be nice.

~~~
stochastic_monk
What is CCPA? I haven’t been able to find an entity with those initials
besides [0], and I feel like that can’t be what you’re going for.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Centre_for_Policy_A...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Centre_for_Policy_Alternatives)

~~~
scarejunba
[https://www.caprivacy.org](https://www.caprivacy.org)

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partycoder
Couldn't even read the article. The ads are so aggressive that my instant
reaction was to just close the page.

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IBM
I follow Antonio García Martínez on Twitter and he's usually always making
this same argument: that any privacy regulation is just going to entrench
Facebook and Google. Which is very convenient because the implied solution to
that is no regulation at all [1]!

But no one who cared about privacy thought this California bill was anyway a
giant triumph. Everyone knows it's not equivalent to GDPR, for one because
it's just in one state. This was just the result of a handful of people taking
advantage of a quirk of California's legislative process to a put a gun to
lawmakers's heads. If not for the ballot proposition process, California would
be the last place I'd expect to pass strong EU-style privacy laws, because
it's home to the surveillance capitalism industry.

What that California bill did do was show some tangible movement can be made
in the US, to the point where the internet companies are now mobilizing to
make a federal law (in the hope that this current Congress and Administration
will not pass anything close to what's on the books in EU) [2]. What they
didn't expect is that it's not just the left that is gunning for Facebook,
Google, and Twitter anymore, it's the right as well. You might believe both
aisles of the political spectrum are motivated by partisan reasons, but it
doesn't matter. The bipartisan environment required for strong regulation to
happen is here.

Privacy activists should seize on the opportunity to pass a federal law that's
equivalent to the EU's. And if there's no movement on that, force the issue by
creating a patchwork of laws in state legislatures. They should also seek out
the backing of Apple, Salesforce, IBM, Oracle, or anyone else in the tech
industry that has the straightforward business model of selling a product or
service for money to a customer. It's critical to make clear to legislators
that there's no united front from the "tech industry" on this.

[1] The real answer is antitrust enforcement, which is also gaining political
support.

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/technology/tech-
industry-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/technology/tech-industry-
federal-privacy-law.html)

~~~
TheAceOfHearts
Over the last few years I've observed a growing sentiment on the right that
they are not being treated fairly by a lot of big tech companies. I don't know
in what way it'll manifest, but if that trend continues it might seriously
harm some of the big players. Therefore it wouldn't surprise me to see support
from the right.

~~~
fapjacks
You don't specifically say one way or the other, but your phrasing made me
curious: Would you assert that big tech companies _do_ treat the red team
fairly? I don't know how many people will reply, but if you are reading this,
I would also like to know your answer to this question. I have been a social
outsider my entire life, and while it's been tough in almost every conceivable
fashion, it does let me see the forest of American politics for the trees with
respect to both the blue team and the red team. And I assert that big tech
companies in fact _do_ treat red-teamers "unfairly" (for a value of "unfair"
which is not limited to right-wing fringe elements). Please note however that
I assert nothing about causality, only that it is so.

