Marketers are angry at Google for sending emails to small business owners urging them to oppose California legislation strengthening consumer privacy protections in digital advertising.
The dispute is over California Assembly Bill 566, which would require browsers and mobile operating systems to have a built-in setting allowing users to easily opt out of data collection
An outreach campaign by the Connected Commerce Council asks recipients to sign a letter opposing the bill. The organization, which claims to be “a non-profit organization with a single goal: to promote small businesses’ access to essential digital technologies and tools,” doesn’t disclose it is funded by Google and Amazon. It came under fire three years ago because many of the small businesses it claimed as members had never heard of it.
The dispute highlights growing tensions between digital ad platforms’ desire for data and marketers who want to build consumer trust.
Political misinformation
Navah Hopkins, brand evangelist of Optmyzr, wrote on LinkedIn that businesses should build “consent-driven conversations” with customers rather than assuming entitlement to user data.
“We deserve the right to opt out of sharing our information and as marketers, we can absolutely ‘make do’ without perfect data,” she wrote, expressing disappointment in what she called “political misinformation” from Google.
Google sent her this in response:
Other marketers speak up
Hopkins wasn’t the only one angry about what appears to be an astroturfing effort by Google.
Lead generation specialist Julie Friedman Bacchini believes companies should get express consent from consumers. She said if more people knew exactly what was being done, they would reject having their data collected.
“Google is pretty notorious for astroturfing issues like this. I have long said that if you cannot get people to actively agree to what you might/want to do with their data then you should not be doing it. The argument that people don’t object is not a fair one as most people have no idea that companies they buy from or provide information to might upload that information to an ad platform like Google Ads. If they did, most would say no thank you, just like they have with Apple’s ATT prompts.”
Performance marketer Louis Halton Davies said that Google keeps stacking the chips in its favor when it comes to consent rules.
“Another sad thing is that having consented data is incredibly valuable to Google and not having it is just annoying for SMBs,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “Appreciate Google is a commercial business but they really take the mick stacking the chips so far in their favor.”
The other side
In its email campaign, Google claims:
- California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed similar legislation last year.
- AB 566 would mandate “new and untested technology” that might confuse consumers.
- The bill would force businesses to “waste money showing ads to people who live far away or aren’t in the market” for their products.
There are currently 12 states with data privacy laws, by the end of the year, there will be five more. Most of those laws are based on California’s. If this bill passes, expect a ripple effect in other states. Google’s actions here likely foreshadow what it will do elsewhere.
Dig deeper: U.S. state data privacy laws: What you need to know
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