Thread · 6 tweets · 24 Aug 2022

Sephora reached a $1.2m settlement with the CA AG for among other things failing to abide by GPC signals. Active GPC enforcement is good news for two groups: people and publishers. Some notes for those who haven't been following this. 🧵

GPC is an extremely simple signal (it's one bit — you literally can't get any simpler) which the browser uses to convey a person's rights being exercised, for instance their right not to have their data sold. It's basically your browser hitting "Do Not Sell" for you.

For people, this is great: they get data rights that they can actually use instead of having to jump through hoops designed by deceptive UX lawyers on every single property out there. Unusable rights aren't rights, and GPC helps a lot here.

For publishers, it's also great! Data is a dysfunctional market (pricing issues, property rights, externalities…) and as organised today it heavily favours intermediaries to the detriment of publishers. Data governance mechanisms like GPC can help change that.

Put differently, for publishers to just give away data to third parties for wanton reuse in the way that is typically done today is economically irrational. But the way the market is structured now means it's that way or the highway.

The more people use GPC, the more publishers can sell *ads* without selling *data*. This is a major (and underdiscussed) business win particularly for journalism. So tl;dr: if you like privacy and democracy, you're happy for more GPC!