From The New York Times
Silicon Valley Faces Regulatory Fight on Its Home Turf
By Daisuke Wakabayashi
OAKLAND, Calif. — The staging ground for one of the biggest regulatory fights facing the technology industry is far removed from Washington or Brussels, tucked into an alley next to a wine and cheese shop about 30 miles from Silicon Valley.
A barely furnished real estate office in an upscale Oakland neighborhood is the headquarters for backers of a proposed California ballot measure that would provide consumers with increased privacy rights, including the ability to demand that companies do not sell their personal data.
If the initiative, called The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, passes, privacy advocates say it will be one of the most meaningful checks in the United States on the growing power of internet behemoths....
“One of the reasons why it’s brought as a ballot initiative is that there is consensus that Silicon Valley owns Sacramento,” said Chris Hoofnagle, an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and an adviser for the initiative. “There’s no prospect of any consequential consumer privacy legislation.”...
Chris Hoofnagle is an adunct professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information and School of Law.
