California Sues Data-Harvesting Company NPD, Enforcing Strict Privacy Law (msn.com) 4
California sued to fine a data-harvesting company, reports the Washington Post, calling it "a rare step to put muscle behind one of the strongest online privacy laws in the United States."
Even when states have tried to restrict data brokers, it has been tough to make those laws stick. That has generally been a problem for the 19 states that have passed broad laws to protect personal information, said Matt Schwartz, a policy analyst for Consumer Reports. He said there has been only 15 or so public enforcement actions by regulators overseeing all those laws. Partly because companies aren't held accountable, they're empowered to ignore the privacy standards. "Noncompliance is fairly widespread," Schwartz said. "It's a major problem."
That's why California is unusual with a data broker law that seems to have teeth. To make sure state residents can order all data brokers operating in the state to delete their personal records [with a single request], California is now requiring brokers to register with the state or face a fine of $200 a day. The state's privacy watchdog said Thursday that it filed litigation to force one data broker, National Public Data, to pay $46,000 for failing to comply with that initial phase of the data broker law. NPD declined to comment through an attorney... This first lawsuit for noncompliance, Schwartz said, shows that California is serious about making companies live up to their privacy obligations... "If they can successfully build it and show it works, it will create a blueprint for other states interested in this idea," he said.
Last summer NPD "spilled hundreds of millions of Americans' Social Security Numbers, addresses, and phone numbers online," according to the blog Krebs on Security, adding that another NPD data broker sharing access to the same consumer records "inadvertently published the passwords to its back-end database in a file that was freely available from its homepage..."
California's attempt to regulate the industry inspired the nonprofit Consumer Reports to create an app called Permission Slip that reveals what data companies collect and, for people in U.S. states, will "work with you to file a request, telling companies to stop selling your personal information."
Other data-protecting options suggested by The Washington Post:
That's why California is unusual with a data broker law that seems to have teeth. To make sure state residents can order all data brokers operating in the state to delete their personal records [with a single request], California is now requiring brokers to register with the state or face a fine of $200 a day. The state's privacy watchdog said Thursday that it filed litigation to force one data broker, National Public Data, to pay $46,000 for failing to comply with that initial phase of the data broker law. NPD declined to comment through an attorney... This first lawsuit for noncompliance, Schwartz said, shows that California is serious about making companies live up to their privacy obligations... "If they can successfully build it and show it works, it will create a blueprint for other states interested in this idea," he said.
Last summer NPD "spilled hundreds of millions of Americans' Social Security Numbers, addresses, and phone numbers online," according to the blog Krebs on Security, adding that another NPD data broker sharing access to the same consumer records "inadvertently published the passwords to its back-end database in a file that was freely available from its homepage..."
California's attempt to regulate the industry inspired the nonprofit Consumer Reports to create an app called Permission Slip that reveals what data companies collect and, for people in U.S. states, will "work with you to file a request, telling companies to stop selling your personal information."
Other data-protecting options suggested by The Washington Post:
- Use Firefox, Brave or DuckDuckGo, "which can automatically tell websites not to sell or share your data. Those demands from the web browsers are legally binding or will be soon in at least nine states."
- Use Privacy Badger, an EFF browser extension which the EFF says "automatically tells websites not to sell or share your data including where it's required by state law."
$46,000 is too little do matter (Score:2)
The state's privacy watchdog said Thursday that it filed litigation to force one data broker, National Public Data, to pay $46,000 for failing to comply with that initial phase of the data broker law.
What percentage of National Public Data's revenue is $46,000?
Re:$46,000 is too little do matter (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about the money, it's trying to get the law to stick. If NPD pays up they admit they have to follow the law, since they didn't pay up California is now suing them which makes it much harder for NPD to dodge the law since they now have to argue in court why that is. They can of course ignore the case which most likely will lead to a default-judgement against them, and that can lead to other legal problems which can be escalated until NPD has to deal with them.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it's realistic for laws to work without some kind of technical component. This would be like trying to go after the telemarketing boiler rooms in the 80s and 90s to perpetuate scams on a large scale, even though it's already illegal. Could you catch a few of them? Yeah, but the companies that collect this data are just fly by night companies that can easily pop in and out of existence, and I guarantee you most of them aren't even in the US. Where a technical component exists, add some sort of
This is a complete joke (Score:2)
" California is now requiring brokers to register with the state or face a fine of $200 a day. "
Oh noes, not ( gasp ) $200 dollars / day.
That will certainly put the fear of God into them :|