I've been grateful as a Californian for our regulations of online businesses. I regularly invoke our right-to-unsubscribe and the CCPA gives us something similar to the GDPR in various ways.
To what extent do companies extend these rights to all Americans because it's easier than building a California-specific version of a website or online product?
I would think a lot. Everyone would rather not have wait for legal to answer a new set of questions every time a state changes their laws. Easier to align on the strictest legislation and go from there, IMHO.
Likely depends on the scale of the company. The likes of Google (I know they aren't specifically on the line for this law anyways) will have more than enough resources to ensure you're a California resident before allowing such. Hard to see others caring and just adhering your request as a non-California resident when it's always a small margin of people that even take advantage of privacy respecting laws.
Exactly. The Parent comment strikes me as being very naïve.
Right to Unsubscribe? Gmail and other email providers do this for you even if you are not a CA resident and even if the Marketer does not have a built-in Unsubscribe link. From a Marketer perspective, you cost money to send emails to, and if you are not going to open, they kind of don't want you on the list anyway.
CCPA == GDPR? Not even close. Majority of CA businesses do not reach the compliance threshold and therefore do not have to or will not comply with requests. Additionally, you have no way to validate if the request was actually carried out. The company's "best efforts" to remove data from their systems is all that's required at best - and a lot of data can be retained for valid business reasons.
Lastly - despite what CA residents believe (and similar to EU residents with GDPR) - CA laws do not apply to the rest of the country simply because they are unenforceable except in the most egregious cases - and even then it would have to be a very large business anyway.
> because it's easier than building a California-specific version of a website or online product
Nobody is doing this in practice. At best, they use some GeoIP thing or if you are logged into an account (which means they have your data anyway). The law does not require them to validate the user anyway, so it's all "best effort" again which usually means low effort.
But hey, if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy believing these things - more power to you.
The right to unsubscribe being discussed here has nothing to do with emails. It states that if you paid for a subscription online, you must be able to cancel it online within a few clicks as well. No “call us” or “send a registered letter during a full moon and low tide only” nonsense. It’s really great.
I can assure you as a Californian that this law is not ignored. They are taking payment from my credit card so they can’t claim ignorance of my California address.
There's no citizen enforcement clause for most of these laws and therefore this mostly means nothing - and where there is it just turns into a money grab/shakedown by bottom feeding lawyers (see existing FAL & P65 suits). Suits get settled, lawyers get paid, plaintiff gets a cut, no wrongdoing is admitted, and nothing changes.
It's not about claiming ignorance. It's about not caring about CA viral laws and CA's inability to effectively enforce them around the world.
Much like how most companies laugh when some EU citizens tries to flex GDPR in the US... hilarious unless you're Google...
People lock-in on the intent and names of these things and believe they've "won" the privacy war. Just like the "Inflation Reduction Act" these laws do very little if anything for their namesake.
It’s really odd to me that you are telling me that my lived experience is false and impossible. Every subscription I have made since this law passed, I have been able to cancel online. This includes newspapers, store club memberships, random podcasts and other online entertainment, educational software, and more.
Sometimes the government really does work for the people. It is actually possible.
Overwhelming majority of those things you listed could already be cancelled online.
You can read the laws yourself. There's not a lot of teeth for small businesses to comply.
Go look at the state AG website for P65 complaints (they are all by law published). 99% are privately settled without wrongdoing (you can see this on AG website too), and some fee is paid to the plaintiff's attorneys. Sometimes the math says it's cheaper to comply, but often not. Small (and even big) businesses around the country freely ignore P65 despite the law having citizen enforcement. If you search on the AG website you will find many repeat offenders. P65 laws have been around for decades...
There's a difference between what people believe should happen and what actually happens. If you believe these laws have "won" the privacy war - you are mistaken.
Why are you conflating right-to-unsubscribe with P65? They are different laws with different enforcement mechanisms. Also consumers don't find P65 useful whereas we see benefit from unsubscribing.
The point was we have these sort of consumer protection laws and nothing has changed. The enforcement mechanisms are weak and designed to make lawyers money more than actually gain compliance.
Given the decades of P65 enforcement - and given the prevalence of "harmful" chemicals imported into this state every day, we have no reason to believe this unsubscribe law will be any different.
Having this law makes people feel like something was accomplished, despite reality.
Where is this mythical renaissance of new online cancellations?
Turns out - most big businesses did this already... oh, but now it's the law but who's enforcing? Lawyers who gain private settlements? That's not enforcement, that's a racket.
Specifically from your list Comcast, Netflix, AT&T, PG&E were all services that I had to call on the phone multiple times, and sometimes send registered letters to in order to terminate service. I’m taking exclusively about personal experience here, not about helping friends.
Edit: and by “terminate service” I mean “stop fucking taking my money, I don’t even live at the address you are claiming”
To what extent do companies extend these rights to all Americans because it's easier than building a California-specific version of a website or online product?
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