One of the world’s largest DNA collections in private hands, ancestry testing company 23AndMe with over 14 million genotypes, seems headed for a chaotic ownership change after CEO Anne Wojcicki warned of incoming bankruptcy and the entire board quit. While…
Category: Data Privacy
2024 State Legislature Wrap-up
It is now past the end of the road for the 2024 state legislative year, so we wanted to report back to you on what happened, what OP did, and what new laws are coming your way. It was the…
$115 Million Dollar Settlement in Katz-Lacabe v. Oracle Privacy Lawsuit
A class action lawsuit against Oracle Corporation for violating state and federal privacy laws by asssembling digital dossiers on people and selling them was settled for $115 million dollars. OP member Mike Katz-Lacabe was a primary named plaintiff. Oracle assembled…
Why I Opposed AB 3080
by Saoirse Grace, 2024 Privacy Rights Fellow Much has been written about the legal, social, and practical reasons AB 3080 must be stopped. I agree—it must be. For those unfamiliar, AB 3080 is a bill in the California state legislature…
Why We Can’t Censor Our Way Out of Online Harms
by Tracy Rosenberg Online Harms Need A Structural Solution: Ham-Handed Censorship Won’t Fix It There is no doubt about it. Internet 2.0 made some people a lot of money. The quandary of the early 2000’s of how to monetize the…
The Saga of AB 1463 and Other Sacto Tales
The 2023 legislative season in CA’s state capital has come to a close. Oakland Privacy intervened on your behalf on over 65 bills (a world record), piping up in support, opposition or demanding changes. Our final batting average in sign/veto…
Time to Ditch Chrome
The Chrome Privacy campaign sought to intervene in Google’s reworking of advertising cookies to increase user privacy. Um….. that didn’t work. Google’s long-running “Privacy Sandbox” is more like a privacy tar pit. It does inhibit the activities of third party…
Federal Trade Commission Proposed Rulemaking On Data Privacy And Commercial Surveillance
On November 21st, the newly filled out Federal Trade Commission accepted written comments on an Announcement of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) that asked a sweeping set of questions about what to do about the commercial data economy in the United States.…
CA Privacy Advocates Comments To CA Privacy Protection Agency 11/21/22
A coalition of privacy advocates, including Oakland Privacy, Media Alliance, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, ACLU Action, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Consumer Federation submitted comments on the latest draft of CA Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) rulemaking. The rulemaking follows the Ca…
Don’t Write That Down: Reflections on Body Temperature and Ovulation Surveillance
by Ursula Curiousa When I was learning to read and write, my teacher gave me homework to devise my very first survey to deploy with three people. Question 1 for all of us in the class: “What is your name?”…