In April, Rhode Island resident Navah Hopkins received a plea for her help to defeat legislation thousands of miles away in California.
The ask came from Google, maker of the world’s most used web browser, Chrome. The tech giant sent a message to an email list that Hopkins and other small business owners were subscribed to. Google’s request: To sign a petition opposing Assembly Bill 566, which would require browsers to provide users with a way to automatically tell websites not to share their personal information with third parties. The measure is sponsored by the California Privacy Protection Agency, which enforces state regulations on such sharing.
In its email to Hopkins, Google claimed that the legislation would “hurt your ability to use online ads to reach customers.”
“It was intentionally misleading people that by this bill passing, they were going to lose out on all of these tools within Google (to advertise),” she told CalMatters.
The outreach was particularly noteworthy because Google had not itself taken a public position on the bill. The tech giant was so quiet about its opposition that Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, the author of AB 566, did not know about Google’s email push until a CalMatters reporter asked. Lowenthal also said his office did not receive small business owners’ signatures or outreach.
