Consumer Watchdog believes individuals have a right to control their personal information and how -- or if – the data is used by corporations. Consumers should be able to go online, make purchases and use their mobile phones without their every move being tracked and recorded.
As the Internet has become increasingly important in consumers’ daily lives, we have focused our recent privacy efforts on protecting consumers online and in the evolving Internet of things.
We have also worked to stop the premature deployments of renegade technology, such as robot cars, without appropriate safety and privacy protections. For example, our campaign to expose the problems with “Google glass,” and its intrusive spying in public spaces, led to abandonment of widespread use of the technology.
Consumer Watchdog advocates for greater accountability for online giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon and works to uncover their violations of ethics, social mores and the rule of law. We fight to apply anti-trust, price gouging and unfair completion laws to online companies that increasingly push the lines of propriety and try to reshape our values.
Welcome to the latest Truth in Privacy dispatch, Consumer Watchdog's tech and privacy newsletter.
Two years since the passage of the voter-approved California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), the board tasked with drawing regulations for the law is nearing the finish line.
Los Angeles, CA—As California begins to finalize a groundbreaking privacy law this week, Consumer Watchdog is calling on the agency drafting regulations to tighten rules so users can take back their private data.
Last-minute changes to the rules include getting rid of the requirement to identify third-party recipients of data and allowing businesses to forgo displaying the privacy choices made by consumers.
Los Angeles, CA -- Consumer Watchdog and a coalition of nonprofits opposed preemption of California’s landmark privacy law in a letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today urging her to protect the rights of 40 million Californians.
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), strengthened by voters in 2020 with the California Privacy Rights Act to give people unprecedented control over their personal data collected by businesses, would be preempted by the federal American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA).
Los Angeles, CA -- As a two-day comment period begins today over new privacy regulations, Consumer Watchdog is highlighting stringent rules for personal data use as well as red flags to be addressed if Californians wish to maximize control over their personal information.
The California Privacy Protection Agency is taking public comment on Wednesday and Thursday pursuant to drafting regulations implementing the California Consumer Privacy Rights Act, amended by voters in 2020 to provide consumers with more control over their personal data.
California lawmakers enacted the nation’s strongest online privacy law in 2018 with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and voters strengthened that law’s protections at the ballot in 2020 with the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). In many areas, the law gives consumers greater protections than the federal proposal currently moving through the House, the American Data Protection and Privacy Act (ADPPA).
The era of more online privacy is approaching, and California is a pioneer. This is our first Truth in Privacy dispatch. Last week, a slew of entities spoke about rulemaking before the California Privacy Protection Agency, which will soon draw up the strongest online privacy laws in the country. Elemental to the new law is people’s ability to opt-out of their personal data being shared or sold by a business. A hallmark will be webpages accepting a global opt-out signal.
LOS ANGELES, CA — A new report details the privacy problems posed for consumers from connected cars and points to new rules to be developed in California as a potential model across the country, if the rules can withstand lobbying by the powerful auto and insurance industries.
Los Angeles, CA – The nonprofit group Consumer Watchdog applauded the decision by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to investigate Tesla’s Autopilot feature and crashes related to it.
Consumer Watchdog has long been a critic of the rush to deploy the technology and its dangers and called for the federal government to take action to stop it.
Los Angeles, CA – The nonprofit, nonpartisan Consumer Watchdog today released a video showing how a box it built with the help of technologists could hack into the wireless connection of a Tesla and take over the screen with a “This Tesla’s Been Hacked” message.
The video can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/RgpmJ6OhPns
Californians enacted the strongest privacy law in America, Proposition 24, the California Privacy Rights Act, on election night by 56%.
