*By Mike Teich*
A sweeping data privacy bill has been approved in California, but it may be too late for internet users to protect their information, said former National Counterterrorism Center officer Dave White.
"You have to consider yourself compromised," he said. "You’ve already given your data away."
Experts are calling it the nation's most far-reaching law to give consumers more control over their personal data. Under the law, customers can request what personal data companies have collected and what third parties have received it.
The passing of the historical bill didn't come without criticism. The ACLU of Northern California said the legislation falls "woefully short" in defending individuals' rights.
"It's a great first step," White said. However, “it doesn’t go far enough."
Companies that collect user data, from Amazon to Microsoft to Uber, lobbied aggressively against the law, pouring millions into a [opposition campaigns](https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/15/17468292/amazon-microsoft-uber-california-consumer-privacy-act).
But consumer advocates called it a milestone victory. "Today was a [huge win](http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/28/technology/california-consumer-privacy-act/index.html) and gives consumer privacy advocates a blueprint for success," James P. Steyer, CEO and founder of Common Sense Media. "We look forward to working together with lawmakers across the nation to ensure robust data privacy protections for all Americans."
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/california-passes-historic-privacy-bill).
The mercurial and Twitter-obsessed Tesla ($TSLA) CEO changed his handle overnight to "Elon Tusk" with an elephant emoji, and tweeted that there would be "some Tesla news" coming at 2 p.m. on Thursday.
Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel isn't one to typically tease future products, but he did hint that Snapchat has bigger ambitions for e-commerce during a talk at a conference on Monday. Snapchat has "pretty cool products coming on the e-commerce side that we’re excited about," Spiegel said onstage at Morgan Stanley's Tech, Media, and Telecom industry conference in San Francisco.
After packing up its plans to open a new campus in New York City, is it possible Amazon will cross the river and set up shop in Newark, N.J.? That city is holding out hope that Amazon's exodus from New York doesn't mean that it's done expanding in the region. Aisha Glover, president and CEO of the Newark Alliance, told Cheddar on Tuesday that her job is to "gently nudge them and remind them that Newark is still there."
SoundCloud, the German streaming service that was on the brink of collapse before a financial rescue in 2017, is doubling down as a platform for creators with a new service that will allow artists to upload and push their content to all of the major streaming providers, including Apple, Spotify, and Amazon. SoundCloud CEO Kerry Trainor told Cheddar it's an "exciting and natural addition" to SoundCloud's value proposition as a place where artists go to distribute their music.
The fallout continues over Amazon's decision to pull out of New York City. Many housing developers scooped up property in the area in anticipation of the 25,000 new employees that would have been coming to town. So what does that mean for the future of real estate in Long Island City? Amy Plitt from Curbed NY talked to Cheddar about how it will impact everything from rents to sidewalks.
While nearly every mid- to large-sized bank rushed to announce blockchain trials and experiments three years ago — only to conclude that they couldn’t find a useful application for the emerging technology — JPMorgan Chase has found its business case: payments.
Bradley Tusk, the founder and CEO of Tusk Strategies and former campaign manager of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, knows exactly why Amazon's HQ2 plans in New York City fell apart. "It's not that we didn't get it because of some geopolitical economic trend or something out of our control. We didn't get it because our own politicians and Amazon themselves were too incompetent and too arrogant and too tone deaf to get it right," Tusk told Cheddar.
Amazon's blog post announcing it will pull the plug on its New York City headquarters is nothing but a bluff to bring politicians back to the negotiating table, said D.A. Davidson Analyst Tom Forte. "Absolutely Amazon's bluffing," Forte told Cheddar Friday.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Wham-O, a company best known for mass-marketing iconic toys like the hula hoop and Frisbee, manufactures most of its toys in China. But only now that has chosen to branch out into e-bikes does the company anticipate feeling the sting of the ongoing trade war. "To date, it hasn't really affected us that much," Wham-O President Todd Richards told Cheddar. "Now with this new technology and this new product, we foresee a little bit of a cost impact."
