*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).
Snap Inc. laid off five employees from its research group this week, according to people familiar with the matter. The five employees were part of a team led by Bobby Murphy, Snap's co-founder, chief technology officer, and second largest individual shareholder.
It's not fitness. It's life. Such is the motto of wellness brand Equinox ー which is taking that commitment to the next level with "Cycle for Survival." "At Equinox, we are a 'do good' company. We're about high-performance living and we felt that this was a cause we wanted to get involved in, " Scott Rosen, president of Equinox, told Cheddar.
Abra's new investment features that allow users to invest their Bitcoin in traditional stocks and ETFs are the latest step forward for the crypto wallet and exchange to become a global crypto bank, CEO Bill Barhydt told Cheddar Thursday.
TikTok, the Chinese-owned company that has quickly become one of the hottest apps in North America, has hired a veteran YouTube executive named Vanessa Pappas to oversee its U.S. operations. TikTik parent company ByteDance is the most valuable private company in the world.
By all accounts, 2018’s North American Bitcoin Conference was packed. The bull market attracted more than 4,000 zealous attendees to Miami to hear the Bitcoin gospel. That January, the term “Bitcoin Billionaire” was widespread, and a tide of scheming hustlers and buttoned up institutions had infiltrated the ranks of Bitcoin’s true believers, looking for riches.
Motorola is out with its latest line of smartphones offering customers more options when it comes to budget-friendly devices. The new G7 models feature bigger screens, sharper cameras, and longer battery life. Motorola's head of product operations, Doug Michau, talked to Cheddar about the importance of low-cost options and also addressed rumors of a Razr reboot.
Airbnb announced on Thursday that airline industry veteran Fred Reid has joined the company as global head of transportation to lead an intensive push into transportation. “We’re going to explore a broad range of ideas and partnerships that can make transportation better. We haven’t settled on exactly what those will look like,” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said in a statement.
Warren Bravo thinks investors will get behind his fish waste-based cannabis concept when his company, Canadian marijuana producer Green Relief, heads to the public market this year. "We are going out, we'll say, sometime this year into the IPO space," Bravo, Green Relief CEO and co-founder, told Cheddar on Wednesday, adding that he's not committed to a specific time frame.
If there's one issue on which President Trump and Congress can work together, it's infrastructure. That's according to Henry Cisneros, a veteran private equity investor and former HUD Secretary under President Bill Clinton.
Firefly is a car-top digital smart screen that benefits ridesharing drivers by giving them a new source of income ー and helps their home cities by providing them with new streams of data, the company's CEO told Cheddar.
"We placed digital smart screens on top of taxi and rideshare cars, and thereby we serve location and time-targeted outdoor advertisements, at the same time our smart screen generates a lot of smart screen data which we share back with municipalities and cities," said Firefly's co-founder and CEO Kaan Gunay.
