Consumer Watchdog

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Consumer Watchdog

Privacy

Consumer Watchdog investigations and advocacy on data privacy, surveillance, AI, and your right to control your personal information.
Group Assails Privacy Measure Changes;

Group Assails Privacy Measure Changes;

<h3>Santa Monica consumer advocate says the bill no longer clearly requires businesses to get written consent before sharing personal data.</h3><p class="source">The Los Angeles Times</p> <p>FTCR criticized an amendment that they said weakened the Privacy bill by failing to make it clear that a business must obtain the written consent of a customer before sharing the customer's private data with its own family of affiliates and subsidiaries.</p>
Chamber Is Urged to Join Poverty War

Chamber Is Urged to Join Poverty War

<h3>Sen. Alarcon demands that the state business group pitch in to abolish poverty. An official says lawmakers first should lobby local units of the association.</h3><p class="source">The Los Angeles Times</p> <p>Court charged that the California Chamber of Commerce regularly abuses democratic processes that put the "commercial gain of a few large corporations over the interests of the individual, society, small business and ethical companies."</p>
Snooping on the governor

Snooping on the governor

<p class="source">Sacramento Bee</p> <p>When Gov. Gray Davis called a press conference last seek to support Sen. Jackie Speier's financial privacy bill -- after years of seemingly sitting on the sidelines -- backers of the bill were struck by the timing.</p>
Golden State of Privacy

Golden State of Privacy

<p class="source">Los Angeles Times</p> <p>It's fitting that California, which has perhaps the nation's most severe identity theft problem, could soon have a groundbreaking financial privacy law.</p>
Everything Has a Price, Including Your Private Information

Everything Has a Price, Including Your Private Information

<p class="source">The Los Angeles Times - Commentary</p> <p>Corporations recognize no inherent harm to the individual from this violation of privacy because, absent the relationship to the company, corporations increasingly do not recognize the individual and her societal rights. (Which explains unsolicited telema</p>
Don’t Kill The Messenger, Just Buy Him Out

Don’t Kill The Messenger, Just Buy Him Out

<h3>Proposed FCC Rule Changes Threaten American Democracy</h3><p class="source">San Diego Union Tribune</p> <p>The free press is supposed to serve the public interest in informing. With fewer and fewer broadcasters, however,the newsgathering resources, the information the public receives, and the diversity of voices will shrink.</p>
INTERVIEW WITH JAMIE COURT, Executive Director with FTCR

INTERVIEW WITH JAMIE COURT, Executive Director with FTCR

<p class="source">Corporate Crime Reporter</p> <p>In his new book, Corporateering: How Corporate Power Steals Your Personal Freedom (Putnam, 2003), consumer advocate Jamie Court argues that corporations routinely rob us of our personal freedoms, including privacy, security, the right to legal recourse, a</p>
Striking a blow for consumers

Striking a blow for consumers

<p class="source">The Vancouver Sun (British Columbia, Canada)</p> <p>California consumer activists are trying to create a three-strikes-and-you're-out law for corporations, backing a bill that would bar a company from doing business in California if it's convicted of three felonies in a 10-year period.</p>