Technology

We’ve noted a few times that there are two major reasons that the U.S. still hasn’t passed even a basic privacy law for the internet era or regulated data brokers. One, the government is corrupt, and has repeatedly buckled to the lobbying of multiple industries that find the current dysfunction very profitable. Two, the government loves the current lax system because it allows them to dodge warrants.

But with scandals only feeding annoyance at the legislative failure, the push is only growing for some kind of basic protections. Not surprisingly, states have filled the vacuum, often poorly. Most notably California, which has already introduced several confusing and problematic bills.

Now California is eyeing SB 362, known as the Delete Act, would require companies to delete all data on individuals upon request — including data purchased or acquired from third parties. Not too surprisingly ad firms and data brokers don’t much like this, so they’ve started using the data they’ve over-collected to run targeted ad campaigns aimed at Californians in a bid to create opposition to the law.

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