Some Prominent Tech Companies Are Paying Big Money To Kill a California Privacy Initiative (theverge.com) 84
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: As data-sharing scandals continue to mount, a new proposal in California offers a potential solution: the California Consumer Privacy Act would require companies to disclose the types of information they collect, like data used to target ads, and allow the public to opt out of having their information sold. Now, some of tech's most prominent companies are pouring millions of dollars into an effort to to kill the proposal.
In recent weeks, Amazon, Microsoft, and Uber have all made substantial contributions to a group campaigning against the initiative, according to state disclosure records. The $195,000 contributions from Amazon and Microsoft, as well as $50,000 from Uber, are only the latest: Facebook, Google, AT&T, and Verizon have each contributed $200,000 to block the measure, while other telecom and advertising groups have also poured money into the opposition group. After Mark Zuckerberg was grilled on privacy during congressional hearings, Facebook said it would no longer support the group. Google did not back down, and the more recent contributions suggest other companies will continue fighting the measure.
In recent weeks, Amazon, Microsoft, and Uber have all made substantial contributions to a group campaigning against the initiative, according to state disclosure records. The $195,000 contributions from Amazon and Microsoft, as well as $50,000 from Uber, are only the latest: Facebook, Google, AT&T, and Verizon have each contributed $200,000 to block the measure, while other telecom and advertising groups have also poured money into the opposition group. After Mark Zuckerberg was grilled on privacy during congressional hearings, Facebook said it would no longer support the group. Google did not back down, and the more recent contributions suggest other companies will continue fighting the measure.
Re: MANAFORT IN PRISON, TRUMP TO FOLLOW SOON! (Score:1)
I hope some RL friends see them doing their crapflooding and break their fingers.
Money doesn't ... (Score:3)
... always work.
Californians often establish trends that buck the status quo, invoking state's rights.
Those companies would be more effective if they threatened economic sanctions against California.
That kind of money does talk.
Re:Money doesn't ... (Score:5, Insightful)
given the rogues gallery of companies against this, it's pretty clear it's in the public's best interest. funny how that works.
Re: (Score:2)
Not at all.
They are spending influence dollars.
How'd that work for the 2012 election [motherjones.com]?
Earlier this year, the Huffington Post reported that Charles Koch has pledged to give $40 million to unseat Obama while David Koch has pledged $20 million. (Their friends and allies have also pledged to help them raise additional millions.) Neither brother has donated to super-PACs (which must disclose their donors), so presumably that money has gone to dark-money groups such as AFP. Which means that the $411,000 in disclosed donations is just the tip of an iceberg of undisclosed campaign money.
Here's what sanctions [slashdot.org] looks like:
Last month, the Seattle City Council introduced a new tax that would charge firms $275 per worker a year to fund homelessness outreach services and affordable housing. This greatly upset Amazon, Seattle's biggest private sector employer, which threatened to move jobs out of the city. Today, The Associated Press reports that Seattle leaders have repealed the tax on large companies such as Amazon and Starbucks after they fought the measure.
Re: Hard to get excited about privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Like, the FBI saying, "We'll make sure Hillary wins".
That wasn't the FBI. That was only a few agents that were investigating her.
Re: (Score:1)
Like, the FBI saying, "We'll make sure Hillary wins".
That wasn't the FBI. That was only a few agents that were investigating her.
One of whom was the head of the FBI.
Nothing to see here, folks, nevermind the man behind the curtain...
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing to see here, folks, nevermind the man behind the curtain...
That's right, there isn't. So says the year+ long investigation.
Mr. Horowitz repeatedly said he found no evidence that the F.B.I. rigged the outcome. “Our review did not find documentary or testimonial evidence directly connecting the political views these employees expressed in their text messages and instant messages to the specific investigative decisions we reviewed,” the report said.
Of course, this doesn't fit your narrative. Lock her up right? That's what you were told to think.
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Of course, this doesn't fit your narrative. Lock her up right? That's what you were told to think.
This assumption about my motives completely denigrates your position, and nothing you've said defies my statement.
Partisan crybabies are partisan crybabies, regardless of which party they choose to be slaves to. James Comey absolutely told Congress that yes, Clinton did commit multiple felonies, but he was choosing to not pursue charges (even though that wasn't his call to make) because, according to his testimony, she didn't intend to commit said felonies. If you're unwilling to accept this absolute, verif
Re: (Score:2)
This assumption about my motives completely denigrates your position
The only thing I assumed was that you were putting this into the context of the investigation into Hilary. Which you were, since you freaking quoted it yourself in your own post, to which I responded. Go ahead and press pgup and check it out for yourself.
Re: Hard to get excited about privacy (Score:2)
The companies opposed to privacy rights are mostly parastatal corporations. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wi... [wiktionary.org]
Even in California (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
This a ballot measure. The citizens decide.
Legal Bribes... (Score:1)
But we're told that legal bribes don't influence our politicians decision making. So surely their donating millions won't affect our leaders decisions in doing the right thing. Will it?
The greatest return on investment for any company is to buy a politician.
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Amazing what little money can make such change. The dollar amounts TFS shows are pitiful, miniscule. The People could crowd-fund millions of dollars if we were organized enough.
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How is that true when this is a ballot initiative? The politicians can't be lobbied to vote for or against it.
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Can they be lobbied to word it a certain way? I've seen a couple of referendums that were worded in such a way that yes meant no and no meant yes, at least until the second reading.
Initiative to protect privacy,
Do you agree that privacy should not be protected, yes/no.
Facebook is smarter (Score:5, Insightful)
After Mark Zuckerberg was grilled on privacy during congressional hearings
Grilled? That wasn't even close to grilled. It was a farce. A series of softballs that were already public information anyway. It only cost Facebook $27,000 in campaign contributions to the chair of the Energy and Finance committee Greg Walden (R-OR) to make it farce, where nothing interesting was revealed. And it only cost them a fraction of what these other companies are shelling out.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone know if the law's any good (Score:2, Informative)
Basically admitting to spying on users (Score:5, Insightful)
I would be far more concerned about companies like Uber, Verizon, and AT&T opposing this. They charge for people to use their services, so they can't use the excuse that they need advertisers to pay in order to keep the services free for users.
Re: Basically admitting to spying on users (Score:1)
And the NSA has even less excuse yet they're completely exempt from any privacy laws-- we're literally paying them to spy on us.
There should have been truly massive protests and riots over this if not an outright rebellion and civil war. The USA was founded on resisting exactly this kind of tyranny.
So this commiefornia stuff is all just theatre... Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, citizen, now move along and pay your taxes, citizen.
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I would be far more concerned about companies like Uber, Verizon, and AT&T opposing this.
You don't have to be an advertising company to horde user data and sell it. That was the big stink around Facebook. Not that they were providing targeted advertising, but that they were selling unrestricted use of the raw data to companies like Cambridge Analytica.
Re: (Score:2)
Time to nullify that law.
Microsoft (Score:1)
From the article
Microsoft believes privacy is a fundamental human right
This is a company that puts in telemetry in its OS, forces the OS to be installed on computers without user's consent, having some buttons that make it look like the telemetry features can be disabled but if you monitor traffic via wireshark, the calling home still happens regularly even if you switch them off. This is a company whose Internet Explorer browser calls home to Microsoft. This is a company nullifies any host file configurations that block traffic that's sent back to Micosoft in
Your move, Apple! (Score:5, Interesting)
Time for Apple to support this California privacy initiative so that people stop putting them in the same lot as Google and Facebook.
Google and Eric Schmidt leaving (Score:2)
I wonder if Eric Schmidt left because of:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... [nytimes.com]
o dear (Score:1)