Facebook And Twitter Hope To Fix California's Troubled Privacy Law With...Misleading Ads?

from the you're-not-helping dept

With the federal government doing little to pass a real privacy law for the modern era, states have begun rushing into the void. That's unfortunately resulting in some state privacy laws that are a lacking in the...quality department. That's been particularly true in California, where the government recently passed the new California Consumer Privacy Act. While the law may be well intentioned, we've noted how the rushed bill has plenty of problems that need fixing if it's ever going to actually work. Murky definitions and drafting errors leave the bill a bit of a muddled mess, with the potential to even undermine other, existing laws.

While all sides of the debate have descended upon the California legislature in a bid to try and fix the bill's language, Silicon Valley lobbying giants have been busy running some highly misleading ads in a bid to try and soften the bill. Under the banner of "Keep the Internet Free," the Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Microsoft-backed Internet Association has been running ads trying to claim that the bill would result in users having to pay errant fees just to use the internet:

"The FREE websites and apps you use every day could start costing you,” announced one such ad on Twitter.

“Using the internet shouldn’t hurt your wallet,” began another that predicted browsing the Web could someday seem like paying at the pump for gasoline."

And while California's proposal certainly has numerous problems, any claim it's going to result in the internet being turned into some kind of pay-to-play hellscape is just nonsense. Sacramento-area users who actually click on the ad are directed to a website that further tries to suggest the new bill will suddenly have users paying to access social media in much the same way they have to pay to buy gasoline:

This obviously isn't the Internet Association's first foray into misleading privacy lobbying. Silicon Valley worked hand in hand with the telecom sector early on to try and stall California's privacy law efforts, pushing ads and talking points claiming that a state-level privacy law would embolden extremists, endanger children, and litter the internet with annoying popups, none of which was actually true. This was after telecom and Silicon Valley worked hand in hand to kill some fairly modest (and far better written) FCC privacy rules back in 2017.

Granted, Silicon Valley giants have some very good reasons to oppose the California bill, given it's rushed and sloppy language could easily result in steeper additional operational costs and numerous unforseen headaches.

At the same time, it's oddly understated that these companies would much prefer it if no privacy law were passed at all, and if a bill is passed, they'd prefer it be loaded with so many loopholes as to be largely useless. Even if the bill lacked troubling language, no major company actually wants to suddenly face million/billion dollar losses due to restrictions on data monetization or behavioral ads, and the combined lobbying firepower of the telecom, tech, insurance, healthcare, and marketing industries makes passing any privacy law with teeth a steep uphill climb.

The problem in California is the bill is slated to go live (warts and all) on January 1, though actual enforcement isn't expected until at least next summer. Efforts by privacy advocates to strengthen the bill have stalled, so their focus now is simply keeping the tougher portions of the bill intact:

"After two failed bids to strengthen the 2018 law, data-privacy advocates say their goal for the year is simply to keep the Privacy Act intact.

"We’re basically looking to hold the line on everything." said Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that advocates for stronger consumer protections online. "We’re watching for gut-and-amends and the usual shenanigans on the floor."

In contrast, the tech sector's goal is to try and weaken the definitions of what's collected, how it can be shared, and who it can be sold to. And while the industry certainly has plenty of other of legitimate reasons to oppose the bill as currently written, further muddying the waters with additional layers of misleading advertising isn't likely to help their cause.

Filed Under: ads, california, ccpa, lobbying, misleading ads, privacy
Companies: facebook, google, internet association

FTC Hammers Sony For Misleading Advertising

from the faking-it dept

Earlier this year, Mike had written up yet another post about Comcast doing its best again to prove that it was a company not worthy of a ton of trust. That specific case of Comcast d-baggery had to do with an advertisement for Comcast internet targeting "real gamers" by showing a "real gamer" playing a "real game" that "really" doesn't have an online component to it. That didn't stop the company spokesman in the ad from asking the "real gamer" if he was experiencing any buffering. Great.

Well, Comcast might want to pray real hard that the FTC doesn't decide to take that advertisement on, since they recently hammered Sony over a similarly misleading ad.

Sony Computer Entertainment America ("Sony") has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers with false advertising claims about the "game changing" technological features of its PlayStation Vita handheld gaming console during its U.S. launch campaign in late 2011 and early 2012. As part of its settlement with the FTC, Sony is barred from making similarly misleading advertising claims in the future, and will provide consumers who bought a PS Vita gaming console before June 1, 2012, either a $25 cash or credit refund, or a $50 merchandise voucher for select video games, and/or services.

At the heart of the FTC's decision was Sony's claim and suggestions in its ads that the Playstation Vita would generally allow for the remote play of customers' Playstation 3 games. The reality is that most PS3 games couldn't use the cross-platform connection in the pick-it-up-where-you-left-off nature that the advertisements suggested. Most games, in fact, simply didn't work using the remote play feature of the Vita. The list of games that didn't allow for remote play included, according to the FTC, the one that Sony and its advertising agency chose to feature in the ads promoting the feature.

Ads said you would “Never stop playing” and showed users enjoying the “remote play,” “cross save” and real-time 3G features. But the FTC says that despite the ads’ promises, customers really couldn’t use remote play to run most PS3 games on the PS Vita — not even Killzone 3, the popular PS3 game Sony featured in its promotional video explaining remote play.

Oops. Just as Comcast did, Sony allowed for advertisements to promote a feature using depictions of a game that it knew, or should have known, would never be able to use that feature. It's the very definition of misleading. Hopefully, the FTC will be paying as much attention to the analogous Comcast advertisements as it has to Sony's.

Filed Under: advertising, deceptive advertising, ftc, misleading ads, playstation vita, vita
Companies: sony