CCPA: Progress Report

With the launch of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in January, what impact has this had on advertisers and consumers? Get our recap on how the first two months have gone in this week's article.

CCPA: Progress Report

In 1999, in my professional career, the most feared acronym was Y2K. Y2K referred to the turn of the century, the year 2000. Y2K created fear within most businesses, fear that their computer systems were going to crash as we moved from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000. It meant months of preparation and system changes to make sure business continued as usual on January 1^st. And it did.

Fast forward twenty years. In 2019, in my professional career, the most feared acronym was CCPA. CCPA refers to the California Consumer Privacy Act. Different but similar to Y2K, in that CCPA created fear within most businesses, specifically brands and those in the AdTech space, because of the changes they were going to have to implement in order to be compliant with this new legislation and allow California residents greater control over their personal information. It also meant months of preparation and system changes in order to continue business as usual on January 1.

As a reminder, the key components of CCPA are:

• Right to opt-out of the collecting and selling of personal information
• Right to access the personal information being collected
• Right to be forgotten. Deletion of personal information upon request
• Be free of discrimination when exercising these rights.

As we turn the corner on the first couple of months of 2020, what kind of impact are we seeing on businesses as a result of this new legislation? 

Probably the biggest impact we all expected to see was an increase in the amount of consumer opt-outs. While something that has been available to all consumers for decades (remember the concepts of notice and choice from the 90’s?), they are now being provided with that notice immediately upon visiting the website. We have all been greeted by a pop-up that reminds us that our data is being collected and provides immediate access to how that data is going to be used and the ability to opt out of this use, choice. 

However, in a recent article published in Adweek, we learned “that CCPA opt-out rates—how often California residents choose the Do Not Sell My Data option on a publisher’s website—were in the range of 0.3% of total traffic.” 

We’ve also learned that the cost associated with businesses becoming compliant with CCPA is approximately $55 billion. This cost has obvious implications to the business who directly incurs this cost, but what are the implications for the consumer?  

“…the costs from state-by-state compliance probably won’t translate into consumer benefits… the compliance costs will be passed through to consumers with no commensurate benefits”.  (TheHill.com)

Perhaps the biggest takeaway so far, is that it is still too early to know what the implications of CCPA will be. Will more consumers exercise their right to the opt out of data collection and of the selling of their data? Will they exercise their right to access their data? Will other states follow suite? 

In fact, the legislation itself still seems to be in a state of modification. Last month, the California attorney general’s office released the second draft of its implementation regulations for the CCPA. And while these include more positives, they are not considered final and advertisers are continuing to work toward what compliance will look like based on the information given.

Some of these modifications include clarity and guidance on the following:

• Definition of “personal information”
• The “Do Not Sell” button
• The potential conflict between “Do Not Track” for a business and the Global Privacy Settings
• Real-time alerts on mobile apps that collect data

One thing we know for certain, we will all be eagerly watching this summer, as July 2020 is the timing for when CCPA becomes fully enforceable.

To view the redline version of the revised regulation, click here.

Interested in reading more content on CCPA? Check out our resources here: CCPA: Everything You Need to Know.