California Will Be Key Battleground in Tech Privacy Fight in 2020
With Congress stalled, other states may also press ahead with their own laws
Public officials in California have spent the last two years wrangling over a law that addresses sweeping concerns about privacy in the internet age. On Jan. 1, the law—the California Consumer Privacy Act—officially took effect. But that is hardly the end of it. The legislation could very well be back on the ballot in the state in 2020, an illustration of how little has been settled when it comes to rules about privacy, either in California or nationally.
One of the key players in California remains Alastair Mactaggart, a real estate developer who has emerged as one of the most peculiar forces for consumer privacy in America. Mactaggart began advocating for the ballot initiative that evolved into the CCPA in 2018 after an alarming dinner-party conversation about online data collection. He has largely funded the effort himself. It developed into the most prominent attempt to create privacy rules to govern advertising behemoths like Google and Facebook, as well as the hundreds of lesser-known businesses collecting and trading information about American consumers.