Michael Hiltzik: Don't let business groups rewrite California's landmark privacy law

Last summer, after years of inaction on consumer privacy by the federal government and slipshod privacy protection by big businesses collecting personal data, the California Legislature took matters into its own hands.

The California Consumer Privacy Act, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in June, is a landmark achievement by any standard.

According to a legislative outline, the measure gives consumers important rights concerning the collection of their personal information by a business - "the right to delete it, the right to know what personal information is collected, the right to know whether and what personal information is being sold or disclosed, the right to stop a business from selling their information, and the right to equal service and price" regardless of whether consumers grant the business access to their personal data.

That's a lot of power getting shifted from mega-businesses such as Facebook and Google back into consumers' hands. The law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2020, also covers