The holiday season is over, but I need one more moment to sing "Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus." It’s the best way I can express my full-throated excitement about California’s new consumer privacy law. The legislation, which went into effect on New Year’s Day, gives consumers a fighting chance to protect their privacy. From now on, retailers are required to prominently display a digital button or link that consumers can click which reads something like: Do Not Sell My Info. If a consumer clicks on it, then the companies will have to stop collecting and reselling personal information like banking info, mailing addresses and web search history — data that has long been collected surreptitiously when consumers made purchases, and sometimes even when they did not.
You’re probably thinking, 'It’s a California law. Why is she raving about it?' Well, because what happens in California can happen in Massachusetts. As the fifth-largest economy in the world, the Golden State has the economic muscle to get retailers singing in multi-part harmony. Already, some companies like Microsoft say they will offer the same privacy option available to California customers to all of their customers, wherever they live. Hallelujah!
Certainly, during the last couple of months leading up to holidays, I was confronted with the evidence of the flagrant and frequent sale of my personal data. Those digital pop-up stalker ads were impossible to escape — all of them highlighting items I browsed days or just hours earlier. That’s bad enough, but I really, really, really hate the never-ending assault of notifications, newsletters and solicitations linked to retailers I never sought out. I’ve spent untold hours trying to locate and then click on the minuscule link to unsubscribe. I block the unwanted email clutter, only to have a new crop of kudzu solicitations take root. And it’s unsettling to think about how far and wide my data has been parsed and distributed. I know there is no way to recall what’s already out there, but I’ll be all too happy to get my hands on this legislative tool to slow the stealthy export. Calling Attorney General Maura Healey. Can’t your office help speed up the process of getting more retailers to make the California law universal, and thereby applicable here?
There is one sour note in my elation about the California law. It doesn’t give consumers the power to cut off all personal data collection. The government is exempt from this new law. That means the Registry of Motor Vehicles, which gathers the most personal of personal information, can and does share your information with other state agencies. So does the IRS, whose infamous investigative arm has individualized source material on pretty much everybody living in America, even non-citizens. And technology has given government agencies access to even more detailed personal data. Plus, it’s not exactly clear with whom they are sharing it.
Several other states, including Maine, have privacy laws, though Maine’s law is limited to data collected by internet service providers, while California’s more broad-based bill covers various kinds of data collection. California’s law is yet another first of its kind in the nation. The state often takes the lead on many things cultural and innovative — the featured soloist in shaking up the status quo. But I can’t wait until the rest of us are humming the same tune.
