California Sticks with Stricter Data Rule

A change that might have helped ad targeting firms skate round California's privacy laws has failed to win a majority in the state's Senate Judiciary Committee.

California's digital privacy law, passed a year ago, is one of the toughest in the US, giving consumers more control over personal information including that with potential to be linked to them. The latter includes cookies, persistent identifiers, browsing history and IP addresses - and consumers can demand to know what has been collected about them, have it deleted, and prevent its sale. However, the bill specifically excepts 'de-identified' information, which cannot be linked.

The Committee voted 3-3 on the amendment, which would have extended the definition of 'de-identified' data to include material not 'reasonably linkable' to a particular consumer. While the state's Chamber of Commerce and other business lobbies supported the amendment, privacy groups said it would allow ad targeting firms to get round most of the law's restrictions.

The amendment could be revived, but the ANA's Dan Jaffe, quoted on www.mediapost.com, says this is unlikely. Meanwhile a separate amendment was passed, explicitly allowing companies to offer loyalty programs giving consumers discounts in exchange for their data but prohibiting them from selling the data to third parties.