Lobbyists rewrote Washington state’s privacy law

https://www.politico.eu/article/how-lobbyists-rewrote-washington-state-privacy-law-microsoft-amazon-regulation/

by Svip • 7 years ago

106 50 7 years ago

blub• 7 years ago

"In the final draft circulated among local lawmakers last week, which was obtained by POLITICO, Ryan Harkins, a senior public policy director at Microsoft, also wrote notes in the margins, often chiding lawmakers for their legislative approach and deleting sections of the bill that he viewed as unsatisfactory."

Lobbying is pure corruption. No individual citizens or even organizations have such power to strike paragraphs from a draft law. Even assuming that those edits would be ignored, they bias the legislators against public interests.

rayiner11• 7 years ago

That’s a perverted view of the “public interest” as being diametrically opposed to corporate interests. Microsoft is a major employer in Washington. Not to mention, it’s one of the nation’s major innovators, making products everyone uses. It’s views on proposed legislation are extremely relevant and helpful and it’s in the “public interest” for legislators to consider them.

Note that some of the provisions in question would have been a huge boon to plaintiffs’ attorneys:

While the state's attorney general had called for the inclusion of a right for individuals to sue companies for potential wrongdoing, such a provision was eventually not included in the final proposals. Financial penalties — much-needed teeth to ensure compliance — were capped at just $7,500 for each intentional violation and $2,500 for any unintended infractions.

Violations are generally construed to be “per user.” So a single unintentional error could result in a huge penalty. Creating a private cause of action would have created a huge incentive to turn every unintentional error into a class action lawsuit.

saagarjha3• 7 years ago

It's in the public interest for legislators to consider those views alongside the views of the general public. Unfortunately the latter does not have the resources to lobby as effectively as Microsoft does…

deogeo2• 7 years ago

That’s a perverted view of the “public interest” as being diametrically opposed to corporate interests.

The goal of corporations is to extract as much money as possible from the public. So in a very real sense, they are opponents, even if sometimes their interests align.

mac01021• 7 years ago

I don't know anything about the pros and cons of this bill. The fact remains that a corporation's interests are frequently not aligned with other people's and in the long run, the ability for corporation's to have this kind of relationship with legislators may do great harm to the Democratic process.

JohnFen9• 7 years ago

That’s a perverted view of the “public interest” as being diametrically opposed to corporate interests.

It's hard to see that as perverted when it is so often true.

mikeash4• 7 years ago

Mocrosoft’s views on legislation are already throughly represented through the voting power of its shareholders, employees, and anyone else who is affected by them. Are you saying they should have unequal influence beyond that?

samirillian2• 7 years ago

Perverted is strong. You might say that there are no specific guarantors of a democracy, and that "one person, one vote" can be interpreted in many ways. But considering regulatory capture by corporate interests undemocratic is a totally fair point, agreed-upon by leftists and free market evangelists alike. There is nothing inherently perverse about this claim.

SaltyBackendGuy• 7 years ago

Lobbying is pure corruption

I never understood why more people don't see it this way. You literally pay money to get X bill passed. If that's not corruption I don't know what is.

colejohnson66• 7 years ago

Because no one wants to think that “their side” is corrupt. It’s always the other side.

skrebbel• 7 years ago

I think much of Europe is looking at the US that way. It's mind blowing, especially how much it happens in the open. We have lots of corruption too, but it's mostly hidden and if it gets out it's a scandal. In the US it appears to be just normal matter of fact stuff. Company funds politician; politician gets elected; favourable law gets passed; nobody bats an eye.

rayiner11• 7 years ago

Because it’s not true. It’s a falsehood perpetuated by people who seek to delegitimize the status quo. You pay people to make PowerPoint presentations about the proposed legislation. (And create talking points and white papers and that sort of thing. A lot of it is just arming legislators with data and arguments to support positions they support anyway.)

hammock• 7 years ago

No individual citizens or even organizations

Isn't that exactly what a lobbyist is??

rbritton• 7 years ago

The text and history of the bill is available here [0]. It does not appear to have made much progress in the House, so they may run out of time to pass it at all.

[0] https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5376&Year=2019

samirillian2• 7 years ago

Did Jay Inslee invite these people? I'm not clear on that point.

Despegar• 7 years ago

Microsoft could have thrown their lot in with Apple, but I guess they're going to look more like the ad-tech giants than Apple and need to preserve the status quo.

Apple should assemble a separate coalition of businesses that would lean just as hard as the ad-tech coalition in favor of privacy in all these state legislatures. I'm pretty sure most enterprise SaaS companies that charge money for their product would have similar interests.

Lobbyists rewrote Washington state’s privacy law

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