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Privacy United States

US Online Privacy Rules Unlikely This Year, Hurting Big Tech (reuters.com) 15

A U.S. online privacy bill is not likely to come before Congress this year, Reuters reported Monday, citing three sources, as lawmakers disagree over issues like whether the bill should preempt state rules, forcing companies to deal with much stricter legislation in California that goes into effect on Jan. 1. From a report: Without a federal law, technology companies, retailers, advertising firms and others dependent on collecting consumer data to track users and increase sales must adapt to the California law, potentially harming corporate profits over the long term. The delay is a setback for companies ranging from Amazon and Facebook to Alphabet's Google and retailers like Walmart, who either directly collect shopper information to run their websites, or provide free services and derive revenues from advertising that relies on online data collection.

"This will be tremendously challenging... companies need to really focus on complying with California now because there is not going to be a life raft from a federal level," Gary Kibel, a partner specializing in technology and privacy at law firm Davis & Gilbert. While the sources, who are involved in the negotiations, still think it is possible at least one discussion draft of the bill could land before the year ends, congressional negotiators must still agree on whether it is adequate to simply ask consumers to consent to collection of personally identifiable information and give them the opportunity to opt out and how the new law would be enforced.

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US Online Privacy Rules Unlikely This Year, Hurting Big Tech

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  • A U.S. online privacy bill is not likely to come before Congress this year,

    Every new legislation is not likely to come before Congress this year, of pass if it happens to make it.

    Between the impeachment circus chewing up their time and the block-voting Democrats refusing to vote for anything but their own plans, which the Republicans in the Senate then block, don't expect any substantial legislation but minimum maintenance (like debt limit and continuing resolutoins) this year.

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday September 30, 2019 @04:29PM (#59254024)
      The Democrats have passed over 100 bills since taking the House. Not one has made it to the floor of the Senate. "Moscow" Mitch the Grim Reaper and his friends in the GOP blocked them all. They blocked a bill to rename a postoffice. Literally, that's all the bill did. No riders, no nothing. Blocked it.

      The GOP was caught out multiple times saying they were actively blocking any legislation in a effort to make the Democrats look bad. They've even got a name for it, "Starve the Beast".

      You undermine confidence in Government long enough and people will stop participating in it. Then you can take it over for yourself.
      • Then you can take it over for yourself.

        The only takeover we'll do is via the vote. How's that working so far?

        • I meant to write

          Then they can take it over for themselves

          .

          I'm overtired so I'm on auto pilot when I type.

          The point is they want you to NOT vote. They want you so demoralized that you won't bother going to the polls. The GOP agenda (Dog eat dog capitalism for the working class, Banning Abortion, Access to medical care only when you're useful to the rich, prison labor that behaves like slave labor, etc, etc) is overwhelmingly unpopular in polls, but polls don't matter if you don't vote.

          • No, we don't vote when the choice is either a douche or a turd. Honestly why would I vote for a Democrat that is fixated on Trump and nothing else? That describes about 75% of them right now. Trump is probably going to be their Moby Dick as this latest thing doesn't quite look like what they're claiming it is. If this goes sideways, and there's about 100 ways it can, the Democrats are probably going to lose the house. That's not the GOPs fault, or even Trump's fault, rather the Democrats are playing Ahab.

            • and vote for Bernie Sanders. Also the "Justice Democrats" who make it a point of refusing corporate cash and supporting pro-worker laws and regulations.

              The Dems are fighting back against Third Way bullshit. Join them and we can fix this shit. If you keep pouting in your room typing cynical posts on /. you won't just solve nothing, you'll hand the country over to monsters.
    • Not sure I see the problem... When Congress tries to actually do something, inevitably a majority of the Country suffers...
    • people give it willingly. In exchange for my privacy I got a phone with a GPS, email, a web browser, video and audio playback, a search engine, and application store with a full developer API and a half dozen other things I'm not thinking of right now.

      Microsoft pays for those things with their office & Windows monopolies. So you're making a trade there too, btw.

      And honestly my privacy isn't all that valuable. So you might know a bit about my medical conditions. So what? My insurance company alre
      • Give me single payer healthcare as a basic right, a living wage, tuition free colleges and a bit more Wall Street regulation and I won't even notice the occasional privacy violation.

        You are a fool in every sense of the word.

        How do you think you could ever get single payer healthcare if you allow insurance companies to invade your privacy and read about the medical complications you are worried about in the future? Do you think the massive insurance business will ignore the gigantic money piñata of private information available? No, they will fight tooth and nail to retain that advantage. Take it away and they will have far less incentive to fight the single payer healthcare plan.

  • From Wikipedia:

    "The intentions of the Act are to provide California residents with the right to:

    Know what personal data is being collected about them.
    Know whether their personal data is sold or disclosed and to whom.
    Say no to the sale of personal data.
    Access their personal data.
    Request a business delete any personal information about a consumer collected from that consumer.
    Not be discriminated against for exercising their privacy rights."

    Seems like a pretty reasonable set of ground rules, at least

    • by Okind ( 556066 )

      From Wikipedia: [...]

      Or read it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Act [wikipedia.org]

      In short: decent privacy protections that force corporations to treat people as people instead of exploiting them as products and to think of the children. Effectively, only publicly available information may be used freely.

      Also, Assembly Bill No. 1798.140/(o)(2) of June 28, 2018 [ca.gov] states on the matter of publicly available information that:

      Information is not “publicly available” if that data is used for a purpose that is not compatible with the purpose for which the data is maintained and made available [...]

      In other words: just like in the European GDPR, the purpose for which data is collected and

  • why RMS uses computers the way he does
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

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