Update: California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018

As previously reported, just last Thursday California lawmakers announced Assembly Bill 375, “The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018” (the “CCPA”), as an alternative to the California Consumer Privacy Act ballot initiative (the “Initiative”).

 

The Initiative was certified on Monday, and, according to the Initiative’s chief sponsor, it will remain on the ballot unless AB 375 passes into law by the state legislature AND is signed by Governor Brown today – merely a week after it was introduced. In what has been described as a “Hobbesian” choice by one state legislator, AB 375 is now on the cusp of passing. If so, the CCPA will be the most far-reaching and detailed privacy law in the United States, and it would take effect on January 1, 2020 – approximately 18 months from now (as a reminder, companies had 2 years to comply with GDPR after the regulation was adopted).

 

We’ll be providing a comprehensive overview of the CCPA in the coming days and months, but to learn more about the process leading up to this point and to get some career advice for your children (spoiler – they should go to law school and become plaintiffs’ class action attorneys), we recommend reading Professor Eric Goldman’s recent post on his Technology & Marketing Law Blog.