"California taking an unexpected step towards internet privacy"
On September 30thCalifornia Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill that requires companies to disclose whether they do or do not track their customers' activity on company websites, and how (if) the company complies with customers’ requests not to be tracked. While not an enforceable law, users can make a request to businesses such as Facebook or Amazon to not keep track of what you do while on their site. Whether this request is granted or not is up to the business itself. And while this law does not require these requests to be fulfilled, it does put them in the public spotlight for debate, which could damage their reputation.
While this law is only applicable to California users, other users can take some measures to prevent their surfing habits from being scrutinized. Most web browsers have a setting that can be turned on or off that sends the notice to the website that you are visiting stating that you wish to not be tracked while you are on their site. Again, this is not enforceable, but it does give the end-user leverage if such a law becomes a federal standard.
