The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA),
effective Jan. 1, 2020, will require more privacy transparency and
choice for consumers than they have ever had under U.S. law, but
its approach to providing consumers with the right to opt out of a
sale of their personal information threatens to disrupt the
third-party digital advertising ecosystem. Most consumers are aware
that adtech has evolved to enable tracking technologies to monitor
online usage across time and sites in order to build interest
profiles tied to pseudonymous identifiers and thereby permit
advertisers to send ads tailored to likely interests. Consumers
benefit from getting more relevant ads, which advertisers will pay
more to place, which in turn generates more revenue for publishers,
thereby fostering free, ad-supported content that also benefits
consumers. Win-win, right? Not so fast, some say; tracking and
targeting is intrusive, or at least creepy, and consumers should
have a choice about who can
