Data Privacy Laws Are Gaining Attention With The Help Of HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Is your state among the list?
Utah recently passed the Utah Consumer Privacy Act, making it the fourth U.S. state to pass a comprehensive consumer data privacy law after California, Virginia, and Colorado passed similar laws.
According to The National Law Review [1], privacy rights laws have been proposed (but not passed!) in the following states: Alaska, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington.
To complicate things, not all of these laws are created equal. It’s generally understood that California’s laws are the most comprehensive. Utah’s new law on the other hand, came under fire from the EFF[2], saying, “This bill protects privacy in name only, and lacks real protections or teeth”. The EFF called for the Governor to “veto this bill and ask the legislature to pass a bill that truly protects the people of Utah.”
The majority of Americans are stuck between no protection at all and privacy laws that leave the fox guarding the henhouse. It’s unbelievable that outside of these four states, U.S. citizens have no legal right to opt out of the sale of their personal information. Please write to your elected officials demanding a comprehensive data privacy law that protects all U.S. citizens.
Awareness is growing
In the episode, John Oliver takes the viewer from targeted online ads, to data brokers, to the creepy people finder websites that Optery’s opt out removal services cover. The video went viral, quickly topping 4.8 million viewers on YouTube. Make sure you watch the ending! 😎
The episode raises awareness of the uphill-battle facing consumers trying to safeguard their data privacy, challenges we are very familiar with at Optery. Humor can be a useful way to diffuse fear, raise awareness and bring people together. John Oliver strikes a good balance between taking consumers’ privacy challenges seriously while also letting us see the humor and irony in the daunting fight for privacy rights that we are engaged in.
Below are some relevant timestamps, quotes, and links from the video 👇
Discussions online
Last week, we ran a series of advertisements in the Capitol Hill area, just to see who might click on them. And if you’re a legislator who clicked on one of these ads, we urge you to watch last night’s segment on data brokers. Sleep well! pic.twitter.com/pQJv5Kb8El
— Last Week Tonight (@LastWeekTonight) April 11, 2022
Highlights from the episode:
“The unchecked middlemen of surveillance capitalism.” – for Wired Magazine by JUSTIN SHERMAN
“Daughter Killed in Car Crash Or Current Business” Al Jazeera story
Cookies, Web tracking and third-party cookies. Epsilon.
Client IDs, and sorting you into lists, ex:
“Couples with Clout”, “Ambitions Singles”, “Kids and Cabernet”
2014 Epsilon 60 minutes. Department of Justice Settlement $150MM
Epsilon admitted that the DTC Unit sold more than 30 million consumers’ data to fraudulent schemes.
Data Brokers Know Where You Are—and Want to Sell That Intel – Justin Sherman Wired Magazine
Warrantless deportations, surveillance by Federal Agencies, FBI, ICE