An Op-ed by Michael Paul, the owner of San Leandro based Yen Interactive Media Group and former Judicial Council of California employee
Imagine for a moment that you’re me, a former employee of the Administrative Office of the Courts that owns a company that owns and operates social networks. Imagine that as an AOC whistleblower, you took your whistleblower complaint to Judicial Council member Senator Ellen Corbett and she ignored you. Imagine that you are so angry that you contemplate running for her seat.
Imagine your surprise when your representative appears to lash out at you with a piece of legislation targeting your business. Senate Bill 242 is what I call the “Death to Social Networks” act of 2011. Would you take it personally?
The death to social networks act, Senate Bill 242 died on the Senate floor last week and dead it should stay. Senate Bill 242 places onerous, unrealistic and unachievable privacy restrictions on sites that are identified as social networks. Imagine for a moment that you had some personally identifiable information on a web site. You could have put it there or someone else could have posted it there. Senate Bill 242 allows a social network user to send a message to the site owner informing them of the private information being on their site. Thereafter, the management has 96 hours to find and remove that information or face a civil penalty of up to $10,000.00 per occurence.
Did we mention that the user does not even need to tell the company where that information can be found on a social networking website?
This is why SB242 is opposed by nearly every company doing business on the internet because in some way, nearly every company is engaged in social networking. All it does is invite litigation against one of California’s fastest growing industries, thereby killing an industry in its growth stage.
Yes, Senator Corbett I took it personally. I took no action other than to sit back and watch the impending fireworks and make this one post because sometimes, you can rely on a little help from your friends. Sometimes that help comes from unexpected places.
Unlike my friends, I don’t need to sift through thousands of terabytes of data hundreds of times a day to comply with this flawed legislation. Furthermore, I don’t even collect personally identifiable information and discourage others from posting it. You might have heard of my friends allied against you. Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, The Internet Alliance, match.com, zynga, eHarmony, all 340 member companies of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and many, many others oppose your stupid legislation.
They’re all almost as mad at you as I am and have hundreds of thousands of employees that you call constituents. I know from personal experience that you don’t listen to your constituents. Just in case you didn’t hear us from the Senate floor last week, we’re prepared to let you hear from us again next week.
Senator Ellen Corbett shame on you for abusing your leadership position. While it appears that you were targeting legislation directly at my business in retaliation for my vocal criticism of your inaction, the real collateral damage goes out to many of your constituents whose jobs will be lost should this legislation ever see the light of day.
Meanwhile, I’ll just continue to sit back and watch the fireworks.
Produced by Michael Paul for Judicial Council Watcher
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Appended by Judicial Council Watcher – in reading, this law is so unconstitutionally vague about what consists of a social network that we could call this bill the anti-judicial council watcher bill. Think about the ways this bill could be utilized to shut down this site because JCW cannot comply with many of the privacy provisions required in this bill.
Maybe Senator Ellen Corbett is upset at being in digital purgatory and this law is her method to get off the wall legally.
http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/05/social-networking-no-place-government-make-policy
San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece.
Mrs. Kramer
May 30, 2011
“Imagine that you are so angry that you contemplate running for her seat.”
Excellent idea!
SF Whistle
May 30, 2011
Anger is not a good enough reason to consider a run
—A seat in the State house—whether it is Assembly or Senate is an opportunity to fix many more things than a single bit of bad legislation….
___California is now so very screwed up that there is such a need for persons such as Michael Paul that have seen the “darkside” up close and pesonal and have a sincere desire to work to bring about change…
I have—-in the course of my work experience…. managed… a winning campaign for the Assembly…I dedicated a year and one-half of my life to all the mechanics of a real campaign. I worked as an AA… I have witnessed first hand that power corrupts—and absolute power corrupts …absolutely.
If Michael Paul can think of a better reason to run for State Senate than anger—I will walk a couple of dozen precincts to further his campaign….(perhaps more)
Michael Paul
May 30, 2011
The better reason would be resolve. Resolve to unseat a legislator that is bad for California. A legislator that ignores the real issues facing Californians at critical junctures where her influence could have made the most difference. As a member of the Senate judiciary committee, Ms. Corbett will have another shot to earn the trust of her costituents once again when AB1208 comes up to her committee. Waiting for her will be 20,000+ constituent signatures in support of AB1208.
JusticeCalifornia
May 30, 2011
20,000 signatures. wow!
Corbett and Steinberg both basked in the glory of RG’s glow, and were avid RG cheerleaders, while the glowing was good.
Now it ain’t so good. In fact now RG is being characterized as having created a burden minimimi has to have time to “deal with”.
Are Corbett and Steinberg going to knowingly tow the RG failed party line at the grave expense of the public? Or do the right thing and support change?
Let’s see.
SF Whistle
May 30, 2011
Michael—
Resolve is good—-Resolve to “fix bad” is fine with me….I’ll give you my promise —as someone that has planned and implemented a winning campaign for an Assembly district…I’ll help you…
I think I know enough of your story already to tell you that ….fixing bad….is good…
Judicial Council Watcher
May 31, 2011
From the realm of the private message window;
Maybe Corbett should go up on the wall of shame twice. Three times if she stalls or amends AB1208.
Michael Paul
May 31, 2011
The real impact of this legislation would be to California jobs. I’m sure that Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg and Carol Bartz would all like to create California jobs.
Most of the services that they provide are provided at no charge to the user. The only way any of these companies makes any money is targeted demographic advertising. If you have to sort through 1/8th’s the world’s population (facebook and google currently each represent about 1/8th the world’s population) to find California records you must treat a different way than other records, then you might be inclined to do some cost recovery to allow California subscribers to use your free services so you can afford to absorb some lawsuits. Or exclude Californians from access.
Or move your entire business out of state.
The solution that eludes Senator Corbett is the simplest of all solutions. If you are worried about your privacy on the internet, you can choose to take advantage of the tools we offer or you can choose to not sign up.
Judicial Council Watcher
June 3, 2011
SB242 is dead for this year. Significantly more opposition has joined the fray.
http://totalcapitol.com/tools/download.php?analysis_id=234816