CDP Institute

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which often leads campaigns to protect kids from big tech, has sent a co-signed letter to Facebook appealing for it to stop plans for its under-13 Instagram program. They argue that it poses multiple risks to young children and adolescents, including excessive focus on appearance, challenging their sense of self and well-being, and increased risk of depression and suicide ideation. Concern was also raised about Instagram algorithms that could be used to persuade children to use other apps or otherwise hook kids.

Corporate lobbyists and special interest groups have been working hard at the state level to push through privacy legislation that will specifically offer weak alternatives to California's strict privacy law, according a review done by The Markup. While bills such as the recently passed one in Virginia, look on the surface like laws to benefit the consumer, they are designed to make opting out and requesting data much harder or more opaque, in the hope that the bulk of personal data will continue to be available to corporations. The chart shows that far more proposed state laws are the same or weaker than Virginia's. A long term industry goal is to set a weak national bill that business can have work in their favor.

According to a new survey conducted by Forrester for Permutive, 73% of brand marketers are worried about the new and more restrictive privacy laws. They are also very concerned about the increased use of ad blockers and exercising consent options. Executives cite data depreciation and reduced data availability as major concerns. Meanwhile, 50% of publishers see privacy as an opportunity to work more closely with advertisers and nearly all have implemented (20%), established (28%) or are discussing (47%) a 1st party data monetization strategy.

Australia’s federal court ruling against Google location setting may set a precedent for court cases and laws worldwide. Google denies wrongdoing, but Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) claims Google misled consumers into believing their personal location on Android could be turned off at setup via Location History. In fact, a setting for “Web & App Activity” accesses location by default and customers were not informed. The ACCC seeks a series of penalties and  compliance orders as part of settlement.

A federal court in California issued a broad ruling that affects Disney, ViacomCBS and tens of thousands of gaming apps, which must now limit data they collect on children ages up to 13. They will also be prohibited from using behaviorally targeted ads other than contextual ads based on app content.

Privacy browser Brave has removed FLoC from its version for desktop and Android, and search engine DuckDuckGo has changed its browser extension to block Google’s FLoC tracking in Chrome. FLoC, which is Google’s “Federated Learning of Cohorts,” claims to be privacy-friendly, but “shares information about browsing behavior with sites and advertisers,” according to Brave executives.

Conventional wisdom says Americans won’t pay for privacy, but this research study used conjoint analysis to show that half would pay at least $8 per month for social media product that didn’t keep or sell their data. Half would also pay $30 extra for a smartphone that was similarly private. On the other hand, about 40% wouldn’t pay anything extra. The study was conducted, apparently just for fun, by Ajit Ghuman, who runs product marketing at a retail customer engagement platform.

A Loop Me survey comparing how thousands of consumers feel about ad data indicates that despite new regulations, more than half don’t believe their data is more secure than it was a year ago, and only 15% of those surveyed say they understand how companies are using their data.

By using Killi, consumers can then view, edit, opt-out, or where possible, get compensated for data use.

National security potentially is a concern. Fears include possible use of personal information by foreign intelligence services for hacking, blackmail and influence campaigns. Companies include AT&T, Google, Twitter and Verizon.

July 1, 2021 concludes the one-year grace period given for businesses to comply with South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).  Legal firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr has published a POPIA compliance checklist to aid businesses in understanding where they need to be POPIA compliant.

The Scottish government has introduced a new check-in app to collect details of people as they visit businesses and other venues, including pubs, restaurants, hair salons and houses of worship. By law, the government specifies that this data must be kept for 21 days, and then must be destroyed or deleted. This is designed to work in concert with the country's health service's "NHS Scotland Test and Protect" initiative to test, trace and isolate from people who have the virus. The concern is that the new check in data will capture intrusive data about individual habits and locations that will be stored in a centralized database.