Lobbying Organization for Google and Facebook Launch Nonsense Campaign Arguing for User Tracking Across the Web ⇥ twitter.com

Jason Kint:

I’m not sending link but Google and Facebook’s reps (called the Internet Association), just launched a propaganda site intended to undermine new California privacy law (CCPA) by confusing public into thinking their surveillance advertising is necessary to fund free content. Lies.

This is the same strategy Google and Facebook backed in Europe. Efforts like this show the insincerity, if not lies, of their CEOs Pichai and Zuckerberg when they write op-eds stating they embrace privacy and try to gaslight lawmakers and the public. Unlike Microsoft and Apple.

The campaign is called Keep the Internet Free, and it’s a crock of shit. The new privacy laws enacted in California do not prohibit advertising, nor do they prohibit data collection outright. But the Internet Association — members of which include Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber, Reddit, Twitter, and Microsoft — is deliberately conflating advertising and behaviourally-targeted surveillance. If user tracking is prohibited, it will not outlaw advertising on the web or in apps, nor will it kill the tech landscape as we know it. It will just mean ads that are less creepy.