California lawmakers advance law to limit predatory privacy lawsuits – California

Source Domain: blackchronicle.com

A bill to reduce predatory privacy lawsuits against California small businesses unanimously passed the state Assembly’s Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection last week, but tort reform advocates say the measure doesn’t go far enough.

Senate Bill 690, authored by Sen. Anna Caballero (D-Merced), was referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. During a review before the privacy panel on July 1, Caballero agreed to amend the measure to target a specific section of the 1967 California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) rather than preclude a broader range of privacy lawsuits involving CIPA.

The Stop CIPA Shakedown Lawsuits Coalition, a group of business, nonprofits and individuals, said in a statement last week that the coalition is grateful for Caballero’s leadership in advancing the bill, which aimed to reduce what supporters said were frivolous lawsuits against businesses using the state’s outdated wiretapping law.

These lawsuits have been advanced based on the theory that businesses’ and nonprofits’ basic website tools – used in payment processing, customer service communications and appointment scheduling – routinely run afoul of CIPA, even though the wiretapping law was focused mainly on telephone communication privacy and predates the invention of the internet, according to California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse.

“In the past four years, over 3,700 CIPA shakedowns have been filed in California, with tens of thousands more estimated demand letters sent,” California CALA reported.

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The state Legislature’s analysis of SB 690 said that prior to the recent amendments, the measure would have provided businesses with an exemption from all civil and criminal liability under CIPA if businesses could show a disputed website tool was for a “commercial business purpose.” This provision could have shielded legitimate privacy violations, the analysis said.

Caballero agreed to amend the bill to eliminate the provision…

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