Facebook is dropping its opposition to a proposed new privacy law in California — a measure that the social media giant had previously fought, Business Insider reported Wednesday.
The about-face followed CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday, when he came under fire for his company’s privacy practices.
"We took this step in order to focus our efforts on supporting reasonable privacy measures in California," a spokesman told BI.
CBS affiliate KPIX in San Francisco first reported the FB change.
According to BI, California's proposed privacy law, which will be on the state's November ballot, would guarantee citizens the rights to see what kinds of information large companies are collecting on them — and to prohibit those companies from selling their personal information.
The law would bar such companies from discriminating against customers who asked that the companies not sell their information. And it would allow consumers to sue companies over data breaches, BI reported.
Facebook, Comcast, AT&T, Google, and Verizon have each contributed $200,000 to the campaign to defeat the proposal.
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