The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been in effect for two years in the European Union (EU). As Americans continue to become attentive to GDPR and their own data privacy, it’s not surprising that some data protection guidelines are emerging in the United States. Indeed, it’s safe to assume that California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) was modeled from the EUs data privacy framework.

Though localized to California, CCPA may be the starting point to overarching federal law on online data privacy. Let’s talk about what this could mean and how we can get there. Before we drill down on this, however, we first have to understand the issues.

Understanding the Need for a Federal Data Privacy Law

What do we require protection from? As we use the internet, every site visited, or activity done on the web generates metadata. At times, this information is anonymized for your safety, but it still follows you through the network.

We’ve seen this behavior with cookies. Created to bring memory to webpages by developer Lou Montuilli at Netscape in 1994, cookies have since been repurposed as third-party cookies used by brands, ads, and intermediaries in some cases to show you ads through your meta perceived “wants and needs”. The prospect of ads following you around the web and of your device spying on you is a concern for many.

But what it’s not a worry for all. A former head of America’s Federal Trade Commission during a talk with The Economist had this to say about tracing consumers’ digital footprint through online services.

It’s okay that they collect information from me while I’m on their site …(for suggestion purposes)… but when you’re talking about the sort of invisible Cyber Otzi that put cookies in your computer and track you around the internet and (Read more...)