How Will the California Consumer Privacy Act Affect Bloggers?

If you’re like me, somewhere in passing, you heard something about this privacy act but didn’t really read through. A privacy act must be a good thing, right? In spirit, yes, but in reality? Not so much.

First of all, brass tacks: will the California Consumer Privacy Act affect bloggers?

In short, yes.

Interesting, right? Maintaining our privacy online is critical, but we can’t throw the baby away with the bath water by making it so hard for people to do business online that they can no longer afford to do so.

This privacy act had good intentions, but since it affects all businesses that reach a certain threshold (mentioned in the images above), it’s more than is necessary for the small businesses. It was intended more for big businesses but can have potentially negative consequences for even us bloggers.

If not changed, this would:

• Cover far more small businesses, like ad-supported blogs, than intended
• Essentially force businesses to compile all the information about who views their websites in one place in order to respond to consumer requests (even if you just track IP addresses for web analytics and don’t link them back to specific people)
• Put targeted advertising at risk – a serious negative implication for ad-supported blogs
• Require businesses to create and staff a toll-free number to respond to privacy requests from this new law

Scary stuff, right? Many bloggers rely on their ad income as a secondary source of income for the blog or even a primary source for their family’s expenses.

Who wants to spend money on a toll-free number or have someone available to answer it? Or to take all that time compiling information about visitors? That could be a ton of hours! Those implications are concerning and we need to help get this act revised.

So what do you do? Start by writing a letter to state legislators! You can do it via this EMAIL link and in less than 10 seconds, you’re done! You can also get the word out to other bloggers and small online businesses. The more of us that are aware about this, the better.

I’ll update more here on the blog as time goes on — and click that link to send your letter! We need fewer obstacles for our businesses, not more, and we can still stand behind privacy protection while ensuring our business needs are met.

Thanks for reading!