Newsom said then that he had asked his team to create a proposal “because we recognize that your data has value and it belongs to you.” Brian Ferguson, Newsom’s deputy director of media and public affairs, said via email that there was no update on the proposal. And in a conversation with Techwire, state Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, a CCPA co-author, said the process won’t be quick. Among the takeaways:
• Conversations are underway, but the statehouse may need more time — “a few years,” in the words of the San Fernando Valley legislator. “Right now, we’re — in the privacy world — we’re just trying to figure out how to deal with a lot of these challenges that were left over from the bill we did last year. And so, that’s going to take up our time. But I think over the next couple of years, you’ll see this evolving,” said Hertzberg, who partnered with Assemblyman Ed Chau, D-Monterey Park, on the CCPA.
• Hertzberg’s read on Newsom is that “he’s just trying to start a conversation” about the data dividend, and Hertzberg called any talk a “discussion of what we should do,” not a “my ideas versus his ideas or anybody else’s.” The lawmaker said he’s unclear exactly where Newsom stands on the data dividend, but considers the state’s chief executive “extremely inquisitive” and has talked about it with him a few times.
• There are differing approaches to the data dividend. One regards it almost like rewards points or airline miles, Hertzberg said — adding that he views the landscape more broadly: wherein through unique circumstances, “hundreds of billions of dollars of value” has been created by monetizing Californians’ privacy — and a fiduciary obligation to state taxpayers and residents exists. A royalty paid to the government “to be used in trust” for residents and citizens is closer to what he’s seeking, said Hertzberg.
“And it’s fair and equitable because, I mean, the profitability that is being made because of monetization of privacy is extraordinary,” he said.
• A data dividend similar to the concept of rewards points is problematic in other ways. It runs the risk of “giving richer people more money” and simply widening the “rich-poor divide,” Hertzberg said without solving “the underlying picture of what we’re trying to accomplish.”
