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California Lawmakers Pass Bill To Give Consumers Broad Privacy Rights (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A major privacy bill on the table in California on Thursday could reshape how Silicon Valley does business. If the bill becomes law, people living in the Golden State can tell companies to stop collecting or selling their personal data. In two votes Thursday, the state's Senate and Assembly both passed the bill in an effort to get it on Gov. Jerry Brown's desk by the end of the day. The tight deadline comes courtesy of an even stricter voter initiative that will appear on California ballots this November if lawmakers can't get the bill through by 5 p.m. PT Thursday. The bill -- AB 375, or the California Consumer Privacy Act -- turns the tech world's business model on its head by letting regular internet users ask for the data a company has collected on them and who it's sold that data to. That alone could be eye-opening for consumers. Most people understand their online activity is being tracked for targeted advertising, but we don't have a broad understanding of what data's being used. If Gov. Jerry Brown signs this bill on Thursday, Californians will have increased control over their personal data -- and one less thing to vote on in November.
GDPR for the win! Just copy it.
Attempts to control, what other people remember about you, are tyrannical and (until very recently) unprecedented.
Once you tell other people something, the information is theirs. There is no basis to allow control of other people's heads, notebooks, or computers...
The only remotely sensible thing — for the authoritarianism-minded — is to ban discrimination based on the customer's unwillingness to share data not essential to the service provision. For example, an auto-repair facility does not need your home address — and so can't refuse to repair your car because you wouldn't fill out the form in full.
Similarly, sites like Quora may be banned from enforcing the "real name" policy.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Why not opt-in instead? As in, companies cannot sell your personal information without your express permission.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.