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Some Prominent Tech Companies Are Paying Big Money To Kill a California Privacy Initiative (theverge.com)
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.
... 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.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I doubt that there are enough progressive and/or uncorrupted politicians in California to get this measure passed. Otoh, if it grabs and holds enough media attention and spotlight thanks to Facebooks recent screwups and almost continual unveiling of more scandalous occurrences maybe it actually has a chance.
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.
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.
The European law's pretty awful. It hurts small companies while leaving a mass of loopholes for the big guys to squirm through. Several games and software products shut down because they weren't set up to be able to delete all the information for a user on a moment's notice and didn't want to risk the crazy fines (which don't scale).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I want privacy from the government and privacy from companies. That isn't too much to ask and if you think it is, too bad.
I hate fat people.
It's obvious why Facebook and Google would oppose this. They're making most of their money from advertising, which probably wouldn't be worthwhile without gathering user data. They don't charge the users for the services, so they have to make money somehow. It also makes sense for Amazon and Microsoft, since they have some services where they get some money from advertising, even if it isn't their primary source of revenue.
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.
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 their latest OS.
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.
Time for Apple to support this California privacy initiative so that people stop putting them in the same lot as Google and Facebook.
#DeleteFacebook
Time to nullify that law.
#DeleteFacebook
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.
I hope some RL friends see them doing their crapflooding and break their fingers.
I wonder if Eric Schmidt left because of:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
The companies opposed to privacy rights are mostly parastatal corporations. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wi...
i've always known it : if you spell youble backwards it reads "do no good" it always has .. o wait ... o wait ye it does
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
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, verifiable fact, then you are the one living in a fantasy world, not me.
Prosecute 'em all, I say.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
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.