Some marketters just have really weird ideas about what they should be allowed to do. Or even what i should be allowed to stop them doing.
Spam is obviously evil to most people, until they decide to spam for their particular product.
SEO has had some strongly negative effects on the www. I'm sort of thinking of starting a movement like "contrast revolution" or "viewable in any browser". My banners would be "zero SEO performed here".
I think the primary tactic for white-hat SEO these days is, "Create good content people want to read." Hard to get too upset about that.
The issue is whether or not that DNT box is checked by default. As we all know, most people don't change default settings.
We/iubenda is giving away a special discount to those affected in California, which most of you may be.
Or, is it in your opinion, a law written by someone who does not have sufficient technical understanding to find the correct wording, and now the law applies erroneously applies to mobile apps?
Since it is near impossible to determine if a visitor is a California resident or not, sites/apps will just implement the necessary notices and features to comply with DNT for everyone.
The only outside scenario is if you get really large, and become a juicy target for the state to go after (and or eg you're large and doing something particularly aggressive in violation). The state simply could never afford the massive enforcement costs to go after every web site owner on earth external to California, so they'll obviously only target the big prizes.
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection...
(That website hasn't been updated yet to reflect the changes made by this new law.)
Also note that (6) sets out slightly stricter standards regarding disclosure:
(6) Disclose whether other parties may collect personally identifiable information about an individual consumer’s online activities over time and across different Web sites when a consumer uses the operator’s Web site or service.
In the meantime it's important to comply with it with the simplest means possible imo. That's what we're trying to help with.
If you can be tracked you will be tracked, eventually but almost inevitably. The law could be used to provide some remedy for damages caused by tracking, but it should be introduced only after core problem with tracking (browsers willingly tag users for indefinite time with invisible tokens, in an quite stealthy manner) is solved.
Of course, this is potentially very expensive, since you could have to deal with up to 51 legal regimes (50 states + federal court, if we omit places like Puerto Rico and so on). That's why firms often aim for compliance with the strictest regulatory regime in widespread use, so as to minimize the legal risks. As pointed out elsewhere in the thread, this is why the CA template is likely to eventually become law in other states. Hence the phrase 'as California goes, so goes the nation' - CA policy often ends up as national policy 20-30 years down the line.