NO ON PROP. 24. ITS ISSUES OUTWEIGH ITS GAINS.

Californians who value online privacy owe gratitude but not total loyalty to developer Alastair Mactaggart. They should be skeptical of Proposition 24 and the $5 million he has contributed to it so far.

In 2018, to head off a ballot measure sponsored by the wealthy San Franciscan, the state Legislature passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which took effect this year. Parts of the law are murky and hard to interpret. But its core is a powerful affirmation of privacy rights — that people have the right to know what information is being gathered about them when they use the internet, that they can request data be deleted and that they can opt out of having it sold. It’s too soon for a redo.

The ink was barely dry on the law when Mactaggart intervened again to craft and fund the initiative that became Proposition 24 on the fall ballot. The measure would create a new state agency to enforce online privacy, give Californians new powers to block the use of their personal information and triple fines for violations of privacy rights of minors.

That sounds good, but what’s peculiar is that many of Mactaggart’s 2018 allies say that in key ways, Proposition 24 hurts the online privacy cause.

In a Zoom interview with The San Diego Union

Tribune Editorial Board earlier this month, Consumer Federation of California President Richard

Holober said the measure has some “very modest” improvements to the 2018 law that are “far, far outweighed by very significant reductions to privacy.”

One problem is it expands the ability of internet content providers to make users “pay for privacy” by charging them higher fees or limiting their eligibility for loyalty reward programs if they opt out of the selling or sharing of their online activities. It also falls short by not changing the current “opt-out” model that forces customers to ask companies to stop selling data to an “opt-in” model in which companies must seek permission. And businesses in

California have already spent $55 billion in complying with the California Consumer Privacy Act and now would have to spend billions more to comply with different standards under Proposition 24.

The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board finds these arguments persuasive. We are open to strengthening online privacy, but the lack of support from groups that should back this — from the

Electronic Frontier Foundation to the ACLU to the

Consumer Federation of California — gives us great pause. We recommend a no vote on Proposition 24.