Why California’s Only Internet Regulation Is An Empty Promise

Zucker Punch

“At the root of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the company used data from 87 million Facebook users in an effort to deviously manipulate voters, was broken promises,” writes Mike Montgomery in the Mercury News. “Facebook was promised by the original collector that the data was to be used only for ‘academic research.’  It wasn’t.  The collector promised not to sell or share the data with third parties.  It didn’t.  When confronted, the parties promised to destroy the data.  They did no such thing.”

He continues:

Promises are like that. They don’t always deliver the goods.

That’s why Californians must be skeptical of the promises from backers of a ballot measure that appears headed for the November ballot. They have given their proposal the apple-pie name of the “Consumer Right to Privacy Act,” and are promising that its enactment would improve the lives of Californians.

Let us do what Facebook didn’t, and seriously examine the validity of that promise.

Read Montgomery’s examination here.