Going Further Down the Data Privacy Trail

We recently covered the implementation of the new California data privacy law, which is designed to give citizens the ability to request data to be deleted and prevent its sale. It comes on the heels of similar laws in recent years, such as the EU’s GDPR that gives consumers more control of which entities they share data with.

The past few years have seen a heightened discourse on data privacy and consumer control of data. Now, in a recent panel talk at Davos (where else?), Salesforce’s co-CEO Keith Block advocated for a national data privacy law in the U.S. “There is no question there needs to be some sort of regulation in the United States. It would be terrific if we had a national data privacy law; instead we have privacy by ZIP code, which is not a good outcome,” he said, per CNBC.

While it’s great to see the CEO of a major tech company say this, a national law will likely only come to reality with the cooperation of the major tech giants that store consumer data, such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, and others.