The bill is expected to blanket ban companies and startups from selling people’s precise location data across the state.
Archived version: https://archive.is/20260608140149/https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/08/massachusetts-votes-to-pass-new-privacy-rights-bill-that-bans-sale-of-precise-location-data/
We’re not selling our data, we’re giving it freely to our sister company incorporated as an LLC in Texas! (or some other location where the law becomes unenforcable.)
don’t get me wrong I like the direction it’s going but loopholes are gonna always exist, and proving this happens is about as easy as proving someone pirated software by setting up a sftp server and giving the credentials to a buddy… and they could simply ship backup tapes to somewhere as an offsite copy and make it completely impossible to figure out.
And watch as every company in the world ignores the law because what are you going to do about it?
Yeah, theyll make more money than it costs them. If they even get caught.
The law lists up to a $5000 fine per violation
Meta made $56 billion in the first 3 months of this year.
Google made $109 Billion in the first 3 months of this year.
Massachusetts population is about 7 million.
Assuming all 7 million people complained and the max fine of $5K was applied that totals $35 billion. That is a best case scenario. We all know that the fine will be less then $1K per person and they would not apply all 7 million people.The fine just as to be more than they make per violation
Location data is valuable but not that valuable.
Rather than make just a ban I would support making a bounty where if you can provide evidence to law enforcement that a company has been illegally firehosing personally identifiable and precise location data of someone onto the internet you can submit evidence of this to a government agency and receive a bounty for it.
You don’t have to have any connection with the person, you simply have to prove that you can find more precise location data about someone than you should be able to do and identify the company that allowed the illegal data collection and dissemination to happen.
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Brb changing my VPN to become a Masshole
