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Meanwhile, G\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">overnor Gavin Newsom is \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/04/14/governor-newsom-issues-proclamation-setting-special-election-for-california-congressional-district-14/\">calling a special election\u003c/a> to fill Swalwell’s congressional seat. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An independent privacy audit of Google, Meta and Microsoft web traffic in California found the firms may be violating state privacy laws, potentially exposing themselves to significant fines.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘I thought I was going to die’: video shows mass force at California women’s prison\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Surveillance footage newly obtained by KQED sheds light on a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12004368/like-a-war-zone-prison-officers-used-unprecedented-force-in-august-attack-incarcerated-women-say\">mass use-of-force incident\u003c/a> at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/ccwf/\">Central California Women’s Facility\u003c/a> in 2024. The incident resulted in discipline for more than 40 staff members, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and $1.9 million in payouts to some of the women injured during the incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the morning of Aug. 2, 2024, officers relocated more than 150 women to the dining hall in order to conduct a large-scale search of their cells. The women were held there for hours without access to food or medication, as tensions built and temperatures rose above 100 degrees, according to court filings. Officers deployed chemical agents, batons and physical force on dozens of incarcerated people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The surveillance footage, obtained through a public records request to\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california-department-of-corrections-and-rehabilitation\"> CDCR\u003c/a>, provides the first detailed view of how the incident unfolded. CDCR has not released officers’ body-camera video or disciplinary records requested by KQED. Previously leaked footage edited and made public by a \u003ca href=\"https://hectorbravoshow.com/\">former correctional lieutenant turned YouTuber\u003c/a> provided only limited insight into the incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Angelina Hernandez, who was inside the dining hall at the time and has since been released, said watching the footage again was emotional. “I really thought I was going to die that day,” Hernandez said. “These officers are supposed to protect us, not attack us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dozens of officers file into the chow hall around 12:30 p.m. and form what appears to be a skirmish line, many holding pepper spray canisters at the ready, the footage shows. Over several minutes, more officers join the formation, growing to what appears to be 40 to 50 officers positioned across the room. While there is no audio captured on the surveillance footage, things appear tense with some of the incarcerated women gesticulating and shouting at the line of officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kenneth Jimenez, a retired lieutenant who reviewed the footage, said officers must be facing an imminent threat in order to justify deploying force. Jimenez is familiar with use of force policy, which he taught to both peace officers and civilians across the state. “I don’t see anybody approaching in a threatening manner,” he said as he watched the video. “I don’t see anything that’s imminent,” Jimenez added that instead of using force officers could have instead restrained a small number of individuals and removed them from the scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDCR did not answer specific questions about whether the force used was excessive, but said policies were violated that day and that “corrective action” was taken.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"ArticlePage-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/politics/eric-swalwell-congressman-california-governor-race-sexual-assault-allegations-lonna-drewes\">\u003cstrong>Another woman accuses former Congressmember Eric Swalwell of sexual assault\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A California woman on Tuesday said she was raped by former Congressman \u003cspan class=\"LinkEnhancement\">\u003ca class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" href=\"https://apnews.com/article/congress-ethics-swalwell-california-governor-a1626c5f4dbcc16c85f4313a8d7e5464\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\">Eric Swalwell\u003c/a>\u003c/span> in 2018 and now plans to make a report to law enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lonna Drewes said during a news conference that the assault occurred at a hotel in Southern California. She said she had one glass of wine that evening and believes Swalwell drugged her before raping her. Swalwell \u003cspan class=\"LinkEnhancement\">\u003ca class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" href=\"https://apnews.com/article/swalwell-democrats-california-governor-campaign-allegations-congress-8b60b0c226f93c691633231053d5ddf9\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\">dropped out\u003c/a>\u003c/span> of the California governor’s race on Sunday and said he would resign from Congress this week following earlier allegations of sexual assault from a different woman. “I did not consent to any sexual activity,” Drewes said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drewes said she was working as a model and owned a fashion software company based in Beverly Hills when she met Swalwell. He offered to help her with connections to further her company and knew she had an interest in local politics. She had met him twice before the night when she says he raped her. That night, the two met at a restaurant opening and were set to attend a political event, she said. On their way to the event, Drewes said Swalwell wanted to stop back at his hotel room to get some paperwork. By the time they reached the room, she said her limbs felt heavy and she felt like she had been drugged. She said Swalwell raped her and later choked her, causing her to lose consciousness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney Sara Azari released a statement Tuesday on Swalwell’s behalf saying he “categorically and unequivocally denies each and every allegation of sexual misconduct and assault that has been leveled against him.” She pledged to “pursue every available legal remedy against those responsible for orchestrating this reprehensible campaign of lies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This comes on the same day that \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/swalwell-resigning-from-congress-after-sexual-assault-accusations\">Swalwell resigned from Congress.\u003c/a> Governor Gavin Newsom has called \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/04/14/governor-newsom-issues-proclamation-setting-special-election-for-california-congressional-district-14/\">a special election for August 18\u003c/a>, to fill the remainder of Swalwell’s term.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"routes-Site-routes-Post-Title-__Title__title\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12079887/what-is-the-point-of-californias-privacy-laws-if-big-tech-ignores-them\">\u003cstrong>What is the point of California’s privacy laws if Big Tech ignores them?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>An independent review of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/category/technology\">Microsoft, Meta and Google\u003c/a> web traffic in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> in March found the tech companies may have violated state regulations around internet privacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://globalprivacyaudit.org/2026/california\">audit\u003c/a>, by \u003ca href=\"https://webxray.ai/\">webXray\u003c/a>, also said that nearly 200 online advertising services ignored “legally defined, globally standard, opt-out signals” around data sharing, along with more than half of nearly 7,000 websites in California, despite user requests to opt-out of cookie tracking, the most visible opt-out mechanism the laws require. This is despite the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11792899/the-california-consumer-privacy-act-mandates-what-again-exactly\">California Consumer Privacy Act\u003c/a>, as expanded by the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11801063/get-ready-for-another-consumer-privacy-initiative-in-california#:~:text=Listen,to%20the%20Attorney%20General's%20Office.\"> California Privacy Rights Act\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844163/proposition-24-californians-say-yes-to-expanding-on-nations-toughest-data-privacy-law\"> other state privacy legislation\u003c/a>, enforced by both the state attorney general’s office and the California Privacy Protection Agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our findings reveal major technology companies simply ignore globally defined opt-out signals, raising the spectre of industrial-scale non-compliance with California requirements,” the \u003ca href=\"https://globalprivacyaudit.org/2026/california\">report’s\u003c/a> website states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Businesses that sell or share your personal information are legally required to honor the \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa/gpc\">Global Privacy Control\u003c/a>, a “stop selling or sharing my data” switch available on web browsers, or as a browser extension.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company that conducted the audit, webXray, was founded by Timothy Libert, a privacy expert who led cookie policy and compliance at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/google\">Google\u003c/a> offices in Sunnyvale from 2021 to 2023. Libert spent 15 years in academia studying the topic and worked as a consultant for national and state regulators before his time at Google.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cb>Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, April 15, 2026\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED has obtained surveillance video of a mass use of force incident at the Central California Women’s Facility. It’s the first detailed look at the August 2024 incident that resulted in the largest disciplinary action from a single use of force event. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/politics/eric-swalwell-congressman-california-governor-race-sexual-assault-allegations-lonna-drewes\">Another woman has come forward\u003c/a> to accuse former California Congressman Eric Swalwell of sexual assault. Meanwhile, G\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">overnor Gavin Newsom is \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/04/14/governor-newsom-issues-proclamation-setting-special-election-for-california-congressional-district-14/\">calling a special election\u003c/a> to fill Swalwell’s congressional seat. \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An independent privacy audit of Google, Meta and Microsoft web traffic in California found the firms may be violating state privacy laws, potentially exposing themselves to significant fines.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>‘I thought I was going to die’: video shows mass force at California women’s prison\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Surveillance footage newly obtained by KQED sheds light on a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12004368/like-a-war-zone-prison-officers-used-unprecedented-force-in-august-attack-incarcerated-women-say\">mass use-of-force incident\u003c/a> at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/ccwf/\">Central California Women’s Facility\u003c/a> in 2024. The incident resulted in discipline for more than 40 staff members, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and $1.9 million in payouts to some of the women injured during the incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the morning of Aug. 2, 2024, officers relocated more than 150 women to the dining hall in order to conduct a large-scale search of their cells. The women were held there for hours without access to food or medication, as tensions built and temperatures rose above 100 degrees, according to court filings. Officers deployed chemical agents, batons and physical force on dozens of incarcerated people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The surveillance footage, obtained through a public records request to\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california-department-of-corrections-and-rehabilitation\"> CDCR\u003c/a>, provides the first detailed view of how the incident unfolded. CDCR has not released officers’ body-camera video or disciplinary records requested by KQED. Previously leaked footage edited and made public by a \u003ca href=\"https://hectorbravoshow.com/\">former correctional lieutenant turned YouTuber\u003c/a> provided only limited insight into the incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Angelina Hernandez, who was inside the dining hall at the time and has since been released, said watching the footage again was emotional. “I really thought I was going to die that day,” Hernandez said. “These officers are supposed to protect us, not attack us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dozens of officers file into the chow hall around 12:30 p.m. and form what appears to be a skirmish line, many holding pepper spray canisters at the ready, the footage shows. Over several minutes, more officers join the formation, growing to what appears to be 40 to 50 officers positioned across the room. While there is no audio captured on the surveillance footage, things appear tense with some of the incarcerated women gesticulating and shouting at the line of officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kenneth Jimenez, a retired lieutenant who reviewed the footage, said officers must be facing an imminent threat in order to justify deploying force. Jimenez is familiar with use of force policy, which he taught to both peace officers and civilians across the state. “I don’t see anybody approaching in a threatening manner,” he said as he watched the video. “I don’t see anything that’s imminent,” Jimenez added that instead of using force officers could have instead restrained a small number of individuals and removed them from the scene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDCR did not answer specific questions about whether the force used was excessive, but said policies were violated that day and that “corrective action” was taken.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"ArticlePage-headline\">\u003ca href=\"https://laist.com/news/politics/eric-swalwell-congressman-california-governor-race-sexual-assault-allegations-lonna-drewes\">\u003cstrong>Another woman accuses former Congressmember Eric Swalwell of sexual assault\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A California woman on Tuesday said she was raped by former Congressman \u003cspan class=\"LinkEnhancement\">\u003ca class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" href=\"https://apnews.com/article/congress-ethics-swalwell-california-governor-a1626c5f4dbcc16c85f4313a8d7e5464\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\">Eric Swalwell\u003c/a>\u003c/span> in 2018 and now plans to make a report to law enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lonna Drewes said during a news conference that the assault occurred at a hotel in Southern California. She said she had one glass of wine that evening and believes Swalwell drugged her before raping her. Swalwell \u003cspan class=\"LinkEnhancement\">\u003ca class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" href=\"https://apnews.com/article/swalwell-democrats-california-governor-campaign-allegations-congress-8b60b0c226f93c691633231053d5ddf9\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\">dropped out\u003c/a>\u003c/span> of the California governor’s race on Sunday and said he would resign from Congress this week following earlier allegations of sexual assault from a different woman. “I did not consent to any sexual activity,” Drewes said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drewes said she was working as a model and owned a fashion software company based in Beverly Hills when she met Swalwell. He offered to help her with connections to further her company and knew she had an interest in local politics. She had met him twice before the night when she says he raped her. That night, the two met at a restaurant opening and were set to attend a political event, she said. On their way to the event, Drewes said Swalwell wanted to stop back at his hotel room to get some paperwork. By the time they reached the room, she said her limbs felt heavy and she felt like she had been drugged. She said Swalwell raped her and later choked her, causing her to lose consciousness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney Sara Azari released a statement Tuesday on Swalwell’s behalf saying he “categorically and unequivocally denies each and every allegation of sexual misconduct and assault that has been leveled against him.” She pledged to “pursue every available legal remedy against those responsible for orchestrating this reprehensible campaign of lies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This comes on the same day that \u003ca href=\"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/swalwell-resigning-from-congress-after-sexual-assault-accusations\">Swalwell resigned from Congress.\u003c/a> Governor Gavin Newsom has called \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/04/14/governor-newsom-issues-proclamation-setting-special-election-for-california-congressional-district-14/\">a special election for August 18\u003c/a>, to fill the remainder of Swalwell’s term.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 class=\"routes-Site-routes-Post-Title-__Title__title\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12079887/what-is-the-point-of-californias-privacy-laws-if-big-tech-ignores-them\">\u003cstrong>What is the point of California’s privacy laws if Big Tech ignores them?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>An independent review of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/category/technology\">Microsoft, Meta and Google\u003c/a> web traffic in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> in March found the tech companies may have violated state regulations around internet privacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://globalprivacyaudit.org/2026/california\">audit\u003c/a>, by \u003ca href=\"https://webxray.ai/\">webXray\u003c/a>, also said that nearly 200 online advertising services ignored “legally defined, globally standard, opt-out signals” around data sharing, along with more than half of nearly 7,000 websites in California, despite user requests to opt-out of cookie tracking, the most visible opt-out mechanism the laws require. This is despite the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11792899/the-california-consumer-privacy-act-mandates-what-again-exactly\">California Consumer Privacy Act\u003c/a>, as expanded by the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11801063/get-ready-for-another-consumer-privacy-initiative-in-california#:~:text=Listen,to%20the%20Attorney%20General's%20Office.\"> California Privacy Rights Act\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844163/proposition-24-californians-say-yes-to-expanding-on-nations-toughest-data-privacy-law\"> other state privacy legislation\u003c/a>, enforced by both the state attorney general’s office and the California Privacy Protection Agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our findings reveal major technology companies simply ignore globally defined opt-out signals, raising the spectre of industrial-scale non-compliance with California requirements,” the \u003ca href=\"https://globalprivacyaudit.org/2026/california\">report’s\u003c/a> website states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Businesses that sell or share your personal information are legally required to honor the \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa/gpc\">Global Privacy Control\u003c/a>, a “stop selling or sharing my data” switch available on web browsers, or as a browser extension.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company that conducted the audit, webXray, was founded by Timothy Libert, a privacy expert who led cookie policy and compliance at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/google\">Google\u003c/a> offices in Sunnyvale from 2021 to 2023. Libert spent 15 years in academia studying the topic and worked as a consultant for national and state regulators before his time at Google.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>An independent review of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/category/technology\">Microsoft, Meta and Google\u003c/a> web traffic in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> in March found the tech companies may have violated state regulations around internet privacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://globalprivacyaudit.org/2026/california\">audit\u003c/a>, by \u003ca href=\"https://webxray.ai/\">webXray\u003c/a>, also said that nearly 200 online advertising services ignored “legally defined, globally standard, opt-out signals” around data sharing, along with more than half of nearly 7,000 websites in California, despite user requests to opt-out of cookie tracking, the most visible opt-out mechanism the laws require.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is despite the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11792899/the-california-consumer-privacy-act-mandates-what-again-exactly\">California Consumer Privacy Act\u003c/a>, as expanded by the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11801063/get-ready-for-another-consumer-privacy-initiative-in-california#:~:text=Listen,to%20the%20Attorney%20General's%20Office.\"> California Privacy Rights Act\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844163/proposition-24-californians-say-yes-to-expanding-on-nations-toughest-data-privacy-law\"> other state privacy legislation\u003c/a>, enforced by both the state attorney general’s office and the California Privacy Protection Agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our findings reveal major technology companies simply ignore globally defined opt-out signals, raising the spectre of industrial-scale non-compliance with California requirements,” the \u003ca href=\"https://globalprivacyaudit.org/2026/california\">report’s\u003c/a> website states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Businesses that sell or share your personal information are legally required to honor the \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa/gpc\">Global Privacy Control\u003c/a>, a “stop selling or sharing my data” switch available on web browsers, or as a browser extension.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company that conducted the audit, webXray, was founded by Timothy Libert, a privacy expert who led cookie policy and compliance at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/google\">Google\u003c/a> offices in Sunnyvale from 2021 to 2023. Libert spent 15 years in academia studying the topic and worked as a consultant for national and state regulators before his time at Google.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11773481\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11773481\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/RS38974_GettyImages1091956764-qut.jpg\" alt=\"computer screen stock image\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/RS38974_GettyImages1091956764-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/RS38974_GettyImages1091956764-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/RS38974_GettyImages1091956764-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/RS38974_GettyImages1091956764-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/RS38974_GettyImages1091956764-qut-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">With no federal law governing digital privacy, California’s Consumer Privacy Act was the first to offer state residents some control over the use of their data by companies. \u003ccite>(Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>webXray, his current venture, functions as a white-hat hacker outfit for hire, advising Silicon Valley companies on legal compliance and scouring the internet for privacy violations for law firms pursuing class action suits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ask the average Californian if they feel they have more privacy now than before the CCPA was passed. I think the answer’s going to be no. And as somebody who has the ability, knowledge and background to measure it, I’m going to say scientifically, the answer is also no,” Libert told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the webXray audit, Google failed to let users opt out 86% of the time, Meta 69% and Microsoft 50%.[aside postID=news_12079472 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/GettyImages-1501991882.jpg']“Google’s failure to honor the [Global Privacy Control] opt-out signal is easy to find in network traffic,” the report noted, concluding, “This non-compliance is easy to spot, hiding in plain sight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Consumer privacy is a top priority for us, and we remain committed to transparency and compliance with applicable privacy requirements,” a Microsoft spokesperson said by email. “As outlined in our Privacy Statement, when we receive a GPC signal, we opt the user out of sharing personal data with third parties for personalized advertising, and our advertising systems are designed to reflect that choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Certain Microsoft cookies are necessary for operational purposes, and may therefore be placed and read even when a GPC signal is detected.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This report is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how our products work. We honor opt-outs provided by advertisers and publishers as required by law,” a Google spokesperson wrote KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement, a Meta spokesperson called webXray’s audit “a blatant marketing ploy that misrepresents how the Global Privacy Control setting works,” and the company’s role.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The control setting restricts how data is shared, not collected, and Meta already requires that when using the Meta pixel, advertisers only share with us information they have obtained the right to share,” the statement continued. “Meta further encourages websites to use our Limited Data Use feature so they can clearly indicate to us when they have permission to share certain information – and when we get information identified that way, we restrict its use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Libert disagreed, arguing as he did in his audit that “just adding a couple lines of code” would bring the companies into compliance with California law. “Their claims that I ‘misunderstood’ anything are farcical. I wrote the cookie policy,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031243\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031243\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The seal above the offices of the California Department of Justice in Sacramento on April 19, 2022. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Under the CCPA, each violation carries a $2,500 fine, or $7,500 if intentional. The companies, he said, are wealthy enough to pay fines and shrug them off without changing how they do business. “If you make them change the code, the whole system falls apart, and that’s what they’re terrified of,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for the California Department of Justice declined to comment on the specific issues raised by the report, but wrote in an email, “We always welcome reporting about potential CCPA violations — anyone interested in reporting a potential violation to our office can go to \u003ca href=\"http://oag.ca.gov/report\">oag.ca.gov/report\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The\u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov\"> California Privacy Protection Agency\u003c/a> declined to comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state attorney general’s office has settled with a wide variety of companies in\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-la-city-attorney-feldstein-soto-announce-500000\"> gaming\u003c/a>,\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-announces-largest-ccpa-settlement-date-secures-155\"> health\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12030969/california-privacy-agency-fines-american-honda-over-consumer-data-violations\"> automotive\u003c/a> industries; conducted sweeps of\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-announces-investigative-sweep-location-data-industry\"> location data\u003c/a>,\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-announces-investigative-sweep-focuses-streaming-services\"> streaming apps and devices\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/data-privacy-day-attorney-general-bonta-focuses-surveillance-pricing-compliance\"> surveillance pricing\u003c/a>; and formed information-sharing\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/state-privacy-regulators-assemble-attorney-general-bonta-announces-bipartisan\"> partnerships\u003c/a> with other state regulators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The largest privacy settlement specifically under the CCPA reached by Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office was a $2.75 million settlement with\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/california-wont-let-it-go-attorney-general-bonta-announces-275-million\"> the Walt Disney Company\u003c/a>, announced Feb.11, 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036125\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads logos are screened on a mobile phone on Jan. 25, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3E%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3E%3E%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3E%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-\">404 Media,\u003c/a> Microsoft, Meta, and Google have collectively\u003ca href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2019/07/ftc-imposes-5-billion-penalty-sweeping-new-privacy-restrictions-facebook\"> paid billions\u003c/a> in\u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/google-must-pay-425-million-class-action-over-privacy-jury-rules-2025-09-03/?ref=404media.co\"> fees for\u003c/a> previous\u003ca href=\"https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1394?ref=404media.co\"> privacy violations\u003c/a> similar to the ones found during the audit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t really see that shifting the needle,” Libert said, adding the agencies’ actions provide only a “veneer of enforcement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State legislators, meanwhile, said they are working to address the apparent lack of accountability by big tech companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Companies that refuse to comply with the law should face real consequences,” state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Becker is the author of multiple bills giving Californians more power over their data, including the still-pending Expanding Privacy Rights Act, \u003ca href=\"https://privacy.ca.gov/2026/01/calprivacy-sponsors-bill-that-expands-deletion-rights-and-accessibility-requirements/'\">SB 923\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those laws, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11947039/delete-act-seeks-to-give-californians-more-power-to-block-data-tracking\">the Delete Act\u003c/a>, allowed residents to \u003ca href=\"https://privacy.ca.gov/drop/about-drop-and-the-delete-act/\">request\u003c/a> that all registered companies that buy and sell your data delete your personal information. Data brokers must begin honoring these requests by Aug. 1, 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12064635\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12064635\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251119-MICROSOFT-GAZA-PROTEST-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251119-MICROSOFT-GAZA-PROTEST-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251119-MICROSOFT-GAZA-PROTEST-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251119-MICROSOFT-GAZA-PROTEST-MD-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Attendees of the Microsoft Ignite conference walk through downtown San Francisco on Nov. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think we’re nibbling around the edges” of the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028137/california-lawmakers-take-on-predatory-surveillance-pricing\"> ad-surveillance economy\u003c/a> Becker told KQED. “The Delete Act fundamentally gets to the heart of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, he added, he acknowledged the challenges of fighting for this cause at the state level, versus the federal or even international.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ultimately, all this is about reclaiming control over our data. When someone searches for medical care, manages their finances, looks for a job — that information is deeply personal, it should not be tracked, sold or weaponized without their consent,” Becker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "An independent privacy audit of Microsoft, Meta and Google web traffic in California found the companies appear to be violating state regulations, potentially exposing themselves to significant fines.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>An independent review of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/category/technology\">Microsoft, Meta and Google\u003c/a> web traffic in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> in March found the tech companies may have violated state regulations around internet privacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://globalprivacyaudit.org/2026/california\">audit\u003c/a>, by \u003ca href=\"https://webxray.ai/\">webXray\u003c/a>, also said that nearly 200 online advertising services ignored “legally defined, globally standard, opt-out signals” around data sharing, along with more than half of nearly 7,000 websites in California, despite user requests to opt-out of cookie tracking, the most visible opt-out mechanism the laws require.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is despite the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11792899/the-california-consumer-privacy-act-mandates-what-again-exactly\">California Consumer Privacy Act\u003c/a>, as expanded by the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11801063/get-ready-for-another-consumer-privacy-initiative-in-california#:~:text=Listen,to%20the%20Attorney%20General's%20Office.\"> California Privacy Rights Act\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844163/proposition-24-californians-say-yes-to-expanding-on-nations-toughest-data-privacy-law\"> other state privacy legislation\u003c/a>, enforced by both the state attorney general’s office and the California Privacy Protection Agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our findings reveal major technology companies simply ignore globally defined opt-out signals, raising the spectre of industrial-scale non-compliance with California requirements,” the \u003ca href=\"https://globalprivacyaudit.org/2026/california\">report’s\u003c/a> website states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Businesses that sell or share your personal information are legally required to honor the \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa/gpc\">Global Privacy Control\u003c/a>, a “stop selling or sharing my data” switch available on web browsers, or as a browser extension.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company that conducted the audit, webXray, was founded by Timothy Libert, a privacy expert who led cookie policy and compliance at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/google\">Google\u003c/a> offices in Sunnyvale from 2021 to 2023. Libert spent 15 years in academia studying the topic and worked as a consultant for national and state regulators before his time at Google.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11773481\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11773481\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/RS38974_GettyImages1091956764-qut.jpg\" alt=\"computer screen stock image\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/RS38974_GettyImages1091956764-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/RS38974_GettyImages1091956764-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/RS38974_GettyImages1091956764-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/RS38974_GettyImages1091956764-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/RS38974_GettyImages1091956764-qut-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">With no federal law governing digital privacy, California’s Consumer Privacy Act was the first to offer state residents some control over the use of their data by companies. \u003ccite>(Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>webXray, his current venture, functions as a white-hat hacker outfit for hire, advising Silicon Valley companies on legal compliance and scouring the internet for privacy violations for law firms pursuing class action suits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ask the average Californian if they feel they have more privacy now than before the CCPA was passed. I think the answer’s going to be no. And as somebody who has the ability, knowledge and background to measure it, I’m going to say scientifically, the answer is also no,” Libert told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the webXray audit, Google failed to let users opt out 86% of the time, Meta 69% and Microsoft 50%.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Google’s failure to honor the [Global Privacy Control] opt-out signal is easy to find in network traffic,” the report noted, concluding, “This non-compliance is easy to spot, hiding in plain sight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Consumer privacy is a top priority for us, and we remain committed to transparency and compliance with applicable privacy requirements,” a Microsoft spokesperson said by email. “As outlined in our Privacy Statement, when we receive a GPC signal, we opt the user out of sharing personal data with third parties for personalized advertising, and our advertising systems are designed to reflect that choice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Certain Microsoft cookies are necessary for operational purposes, and may therefore be placed and read even when a GPC signal is detected.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This report is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how our products work. We honor opt-outs provided by advertisers and publishers as required by law,” a Google spokesperson wrote KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement, a Meta spokesperson called webXray’s audit “a blatant marketing ploy that misrepresents how the Global Privacy Control setting works,” and the company’s role.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The control setting restricts how data is shared, not collected, and Meta already requires that when using the Meta pixel, advertisers only share with us information they have obtained the right to share,” the statement continued. “Meta further encourages websites to use our Limited Data Use feature so they can clearly indicate to us when they have permission to share certain information – and when we get information identified that way, we restrict its use.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Libert disagreed, arguing as he did in his audit that “just adding a couple lines of code” would bring the companies into compliance with California law. “Their claims that I ‘misunderstood’ anything are farcical. I wrote the cookie policy,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12031243\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1568px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12031243\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1045\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy.jpg 1568w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/041922-ATTORNEY-GENERAL-OFFICE-MHN-03-CM-copy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1568px) 100vw, 1568px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The seal above the offices of the California Department of Justice in Sacramento on April 19, 2022. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/CalMatters)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Under the CCPA, each violation carries a $2,500 fine, or $7,500 if intentional. The companies, he said, are wealthy enough to pay fines and shrug them off without changing how they do business. “If you make them change the code, the whole system falls apart, and that’s what they’re terrified of,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for the California Department of Justice declined to comment on the specific issues raised by the report, but wrote in an email, “We always welcome reporting about potential CCPA violations — anyone interested in reporting a potential violation to our office can go to \u003ca href=\"http://oag.ca.gov/report\">oag.ca.gov/report\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The\u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov\"> California Privacy Protection Agency\u003c/a> declined to comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state attorney general’s office has settled with a wide variety of companies in\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-la-city-attorney-feldstein-soto-announce-500000\"> gaming\u003c/a>,\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-announces-largest-ccpa-settlement-date-secures-155\"> health\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12030969/california-privacy-agency-fines-american-honda-over-consumer-data-violations\"> automotive\u003c/a> industries; conducted sweeps of\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-announces-investigative-sweep-location-data-industry\"> location data\u003c/a>,\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-announces-investigative-sweep-focuses-streaming-services\"> streaming apps and devices\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/data-privacy-day-attorney-general-bonta-focuses-surveillance-pricing-compliance\"> surveillance pricing\u003c/a>; and formed information-sharing\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/state-privacy-regulators-assemble-attorney-general-bonta-announces-bipartisan\"> partnerships\u003c/a> with other state regulators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The largest privacy settlement specifically under the CCPA reached by Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office was a $2.75 million settlement with\u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/california-wont-let-it-go-attorney-general-bonta-announces-275-million\"> the Walt Disney Company\u003c/a>, announced Feb.11, 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036125\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads logos are screened on a mobile phone on Jan. 25, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3E%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3E%3E%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3E%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-independent-audit/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter%3E%3Chttps://www.404media.co/google-microsoft-meta-all-tracking-you-even-when-you-opt-out-according-to-an-\">404 Media,\u003c/a> Microsoft, Meta, and Google have collectively\u003ca href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2019/07/ftc-imposes-5-billion-penalty-sweeping-new-privacy-restrictions-facebook\"> paid billions\u003c/a> in\u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/google-must-pay-425-million-class-action-over-privacy-jury-rules-2025-09-03/?ref=404media.co\"> fees for\u003c/a> previous\u003ca href=\"https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1394?ref=404media.co\"> privacy violations\u003c/a> similar to the ones found during the audit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t really see that shifting the needle,” Libert said, adding the agencies’ actions provide only a “veneer of enforcement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State legislators, meanwhile, said they are working to address the apparent lack of accountability by big tech companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Companies that refuse to comply with the law should face real consequences,” state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Becker is the author of multiple bills giving Californians more power over their data, including the still-pending Expanding Privacy Rights Act, \u003ca href=\"https://privacy.ca.gov/2026/01/calprivacy-sponsors-bill-that-expands-deletion-rights-and-accessibility-requirements/'\">SB 923\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those laws, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11947039/delete-act-seeks-to-give-californians-more-power-to-block-data-tracking\">the Delete Act\u003c/a>, allowed residents to \u003ca href=\"https://privacy.ca.gov/drop/about-drop-and-the-delete-act/\">request\u003c/a> that all registered companies that buy and sell your data delete your personal information. Data brokers must begin honoring these requests by Aug. 1, 2026.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12064635\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12064635\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251119-MICROSOFT-GAZA-PROTEST-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251119-MICROSOFT-GAZA-PROTEST-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251119-MICROSOFT-GAZA-PROTEST-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/11/251119-MICROSOFT-GAZA-PROTEST-MD-01-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Attendees of the Microsoft Ignite conference walk through downtown San Francisco on Nov. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think we’re nibbling around the edges” of the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028137/california-lawmakers-take-on-predatory-surveillance-pricing\"> ad-surveillance economy\u003c/a> Becker told KQED. “The Delete Act fundamentally gets to the heart of it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, he added, he acknowledged the challenges of fighting for this cause at the state level, versus the federal or even international.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ultimately, all this is about reclaiming control over our data. When someone searches for medical care, manages their finances, looks for a job — that information is deeply personal, it should not be tracked, sold or weaponized without their consent,” Becker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "google-updates-suicide-self-harm-safeguards-in-gemini-as-ai-lawsuits-mount",
"title": "Google Updates Suicide, Self-Harm Safeguards in Gemini as AI Lawsuits Mount",
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"headTitle": "Google Updates Suicide, Self-Harm Safeguards in Gemini as AI Lawsuits Mount | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>As a growing number of lawsuits allege AI chatbots are cultivating emotional dependency loops with humans, Alphabet’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/google\">Google\u003c/a> announced it will direct Gemini chatbot users to a support hotline if the conversation indicates a “potential crisis related to suicide or self-harm.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a\u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/health/mental-health-updates/\"> blog post\u003c/a>, Google wrote that Gemini will introduce a redesigned “Help is available” feature, developed in collaboration with clinical experts. “Once the interface is activated, the option to reach out for professional help will remain clearly available throughout the remainder of the conversation,” the post stated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google wrote that it has trained Gemini “not to agree with or reinforce false beliefs, and instead gently distinguish subjective experience from objective fact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Psychologically vulnerable people turning to chatbots to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12049674\">go down rabbit holes\u003c/a> could have been predicted, according to Jennifer King, a privacy and data policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. “To some extent, you can anticipate some of the harms we see,” she told KQED. “We’ve seen people acting bad with technology across a variety of behaviors for a very long time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the blog post does not mention lawsuits, the family of a 36-year-old man who died in Florida\u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-04/google-gemini-accused-of-coaching-user-to-suicide-in-new-suit\"> sued Google\u003c/a> in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California last month, claiming that his use of Gemini devolved into a “\u003ca href=\"https://news.bloomberglaw.com/artificial-intelligence/google-gemini-accused-of-coaching-user-to-suicide-in-new-suit\">four-day descent into violent missions and coached suicide\u003c/a>.” At the time, Google said the chatbot repeatedly referred the man to a crisis hotline, but the company also promised to improve Gemini’s safeguards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/embed/DR-vBOsyQPE\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12063401/openai-faces-legal-storm-over-claims-its-ai-drove-users-to-suicide-delusions\">not the only AI developer\u003c/a> facing lawsuits over allegations that its chatbots encourage some users to form obsessive relationships with them, feed delusions and even contribute to plans for suicide or murder. Research also suggests users\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038154/kids-talking-ai-companion-chatbots-stanford-researchers-say-thats-bad-idea\"> form intense, quasi-romantic bonds\u003c/a> with chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The guardrails are obviously necessary, King said. “There have been many cases of users experiencing psychosis and other problems,” she added, noting the sycophancy or agreeability built into the chatbots’ design encourages unstable behavior, “as well as their propensity to get people to believe things that just aren’t true.”[aside postID=news_12069286 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/OpenAI.jpg']Guadalupe Hayes-Mota, director of the bioethics program at Santa Clara University, wants to see proof that AI chatbot developers are using clinically validated guidelines for interactions where mental health care is an issue. “Who’s actually making the decision when the crisis pops up for the individual, and how is that being done?” he asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s an awful lot of people who study these things,” King said. “But they’re often not consulted. They’re not part of the process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past year and a half, OpenAI and Anthropic have also adjusted their mental-health guardrails, amid growing public scrutiny and lawsuits. Experts say that in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059714/newsom-vetoes-most-watched-childrens-ai-bill-signs-16-others-targeting-tech\">absence of federal regulation\u003c/a>, court rulings appear to be most effectively inspiring tech companies to take proactive measures like Google’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in a case centered around \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12063401/openai-faces-legal-storm-over-claims-its-ai-drove-users-to-suicide-delusions\">social media addiction\u003c/a>, using arguments centered around product liability and negligence — sidestepping Section 230, a longstanding legal shield that protects platforms from liability for harmful content that users post.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The updated mental health support features arrive on the heels of lawsuits alleging that Alphabet’s Google, as well as rivals like OpenAI, design chatbots that lead users to self-harm.",
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"title": "Google Updates Suicide, Self-Harm Safeguards in Gemini as AI Lawsuits Mount | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As a growing number of lawsuits allege AI chatbots are cultivating emotional dependency loops with humans, Alphabet’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/google\">Google\u003c/a> announced it will direct Gemini chatbot users to a support hotline if the conversation indicates a “potential crisis related to suicide or self-harm.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a\u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/health/mental-health-updates/\"> blog post\u003c/a>, Google wrote that Gemini will introduce a redesigned “Help is available” feature, developed in collaboration with clinical experts. “Once the interface is activated, the option to reach out for professional help will remain clearly available throughout the remainder of the conversation,” the post stated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google wrote that it has trained Gemini “not to agree with or reinforce false beliefs, and instead gently distinguish subjective experience from objective fact.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Psychologically vulnerable people turning to chatbots to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12049674\">go down rabbit holes\u003c/a> could have been predicted, according to Jennifer King, a privacy and data policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. “To some extent, you can anticipate some of the harms we see,” she told KQED. “We’ve seen people acting bad with technology across a variety of behaviors for a very long time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the blog post does not mention lawsuits, the family of a 36-year-old man who died in Florida\u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-04/google-gemini-accused-of-coaching-user-to-suicide-in-new-suit\"> sued Google\u003c/a> in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California last month, claiming that his use of Gemini devolved into a “\u003ca href=\"https://news.bloomberglaw.com/artificial-intelligence/google-gemini-accused-of-coaching-user-to-suicide-in-new-suit\">four-day descent into violent missions and coached suicide\u003c/a>.” At the time, Google said the chatbot repeatedly referred the man to a crisis hotline, but the company also promised to improve Gemini’s safeguards.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/DR-vBOsyQPE'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/DR-vBOsyQPE'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Google is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12063401/openai-faces-legal-storm-over-claims-its-ai-drove-users-to-suicide-delusions\">not the only AI developer\u003c/a> facing lawsuits over allegations that its chatbots encourage some users to form obsessive relationships with them, feed delusions and even contribute to plans for suicide or murder. Research also suggests users\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038154/kids-talking-ai-companion-chatbots-stanford-researchers-say-thats-bad-idea\"> form intense, quasi-romantic bonds\u003c/a> with chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The guardrails are obviously necessary, King said. “There have been many cases of users experiencing psychosis and other problems,” she added, noting the sycophancy or agreeability built into the chatbots’ design encourages unstable behavior, “as well as their propensity to get people to believe things that just aren’t true.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Guadalupe Hayes-Mota, director of the bioethics program at Santa Clara University, wants to see proof that AI chatbot developers are using clinically validated guidelines for interactions where mental health care is an issue. “Who’s actually making the decision when the crisis pops up for the individual, and how is that being done?” he asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s an awful lot of people who study these things,” King said. “But they’re often not consulted. They’re not part of the process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past year and a half, OpenAI and Anthropic have also adjusted their mental-health guardrails, amid growing public scrutiny and lawsuits. Experts say that in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12059714/newsom-vetoes-most-watched-childrens-ai-bill-signs-16-others-targeting-tech\">absence of federal regulation\u003c/a>, court rulings appear to be most effectively inspiring tech companies to take proactive measures like Google’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, a Los Angeles jury found Meta and YouTube negligent in a case centered around \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12063401/openai-faces-legal-storm-over-claims-its-ai-drove-users-to-suicide-delusions\">social media addiction\u003c/a>, using arguments centered around product liability and negligence — sidestepping Section 230, a longstanding legal shield that protects platforms from liability for harmful content that users post.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Meta, Google Ordered to Pay $6 Million in Social Media Addiction Trial",
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"content": "\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> jury on Wednesday found that Meta and Google’s YouTube were to blame for the depression and anxiety of a woman who compulsively used social media as a small child, awarding her $6 million in a rare verdict holding Silicon Valley accountable for its role in fueling a youth mental health crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The jurors concluded that Meta and Google should pay the woman $3 million in compensatory damages and an additional $3 million in punitive damages, with Meta on the hook for 70% of that amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the verdict was read, the plaintiff, known only as Kaley, looked straight ahead stony-faced, while her lawyers shook their heads in approval. The lawyers for Meta and Google did not react to the jury’s decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outcome of this case could influence thousands of other consolidated cases against the social media companies. The litigation has drawn comparisons to the legal crusade that led to industry changes against Big Tobacco in the 1990s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joseph VanZandt, the co-lead lawyer for families and others suing social media companies, said Wednesday’s judgement is a step toward holding Silicon Valley giants accountable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But this verdict is bigger than one case. For years, social media companies have profited from targeting children while concealing their addictive and dangerous design features. Today’s verdict is a referendum — from a jury, to an entire industry — that accountability has arrived,” he said in a joint statement with the plaintiff’s legal team.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta and Google said they disagree with the verdict. Meta said it is weighing its legal options and Google plans to appeal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site,” said Google spokesman José Castañeda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The verdict from a Los Angeles jury over the harms of social media comes a day after a separate jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/03/24/g-s1-115019/new-mexico-meta-children-mental-health\">pay $375 million in damages\u003c/a> for failing to protect young users from child predators on Instagram and Facebook. The New Mexico jury found Meta responsible for misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms, declaring that the tech company had flouted state consumer protection laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That trial will also enter a second phase, in May, in which a judge will decide whether Meta created a public nuisance and if the company must pay additional penalties to address harms. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said he will also ask the court to force changes to make Meta’s apps safer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Juries in New Mexico and California have recognized that Meta’s public deception and design features are putting children in harm’s way,” Torrez said in a statement on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077556\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077556\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2261837336-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2261837336-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2261837336-1-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2261837336-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2261837336-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2261837336-1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves Los Angeles Superior Court after testifying in a trial examining whether social media companies designed their platforms to be addictive to children on Feb. 18, 2026. (Photo by Apu GOMES / AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The blockbuster verdicts land against the backdrop of school districts and state lawmakers around the country limiting or banning phone use in schools. This week’s verdicts mark the first time juries have decided that tech companies are at least partially liable for online and off-line dangers kids and teenagers encounter after incessantly using social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over a more than month-long trial in Los Angeles, the jury of five men and seven women heard competing narratives about what role social media platforms played in the mental health struggles of a woman identified as KGM, or Kaley, a now-20-year-old from Chico, Calif., who said she first started using YouTube at 6 years old and Instagram when she was 11.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawyers for KGM argued that Instagram and YouTube were deliberately designed to be addictive and the companies knew the platforms were harming young people, while the tech companies countered that their services cannot be blamed for complex mental health issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KGM’s legal team showed the jury internal documents from Meta in which CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives described the company’s efforts to attract and keep kids and teens on its platforms. One document said: “If we wanna win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens,” and another internal memo showed that 11-year-olds were four times as likely to keep coming back to Instagram, compared with competing apps, despite the platform requiring users to be at least 13 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under questioning about these documents, Zuckerberg told the jury that keeping young users safe has always been a company priority. “If people feel like they’re not having a good experience, why would they keep using the product?” Zuckerberg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trial is a test case, known as a bellwether, tied to about 2,000 other pending lawsuits brought by parents and school districts arguing that social media giants should be considered manufacturers of defective products for hooking a generation of young people to social media feeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout the case, the companies insisted that there is no scientific proof that social media causes mental health issues, suggesting that they are being used as a scapegoat for the multi-faceted emotional issues children face that can have many root causes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Snapchat and TikTok were also defendants in the case, but both companies \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/01/27/nx-s1-5684196/social-media-kids-addiction-mental-health-trial\">settled\u003c/a> before the trial began.\u003cbr>\nL.A. case focused on design of social media platforms to overcome liability shield\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, tech companies have avoided legal liability over the content that appears on their sites because of a federal law known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/05/11/994395889/how-one-mans-fight-against-an-aol-troll-sealed-the-tech-industrys-power\">Section 230\u003c/a> of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which says that tech companies are not legally responsible for what their users post. This has made it difficult to bring cases over social media harms to trial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Los Angeles case, lawyers took a different approach by focusing on how tech companies built their platforms. They argued that features like infinite scroll, constant notifications, autoplay and beauty filters made apps like Instagram and YouTube equivalent to a “digital casino,” which young people found too irresistible to put down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By taking this tack, the lawyers pursued a case alleging defective design that was able to get around the high bar set by Section 230. It’s not what users post, the lawyers argued, but the very architecture of social media platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How do you make a child never put down the phone? That’s called the engineering of addiction,” said KGM’s lawyer Mark Lanier, a Texas trial attorney and part-time pastor who had a penchant for drawing on documents with markers on overhead project slides to keep the jury engaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the course of five weeks, jurors heard from therapists, engineers, tech executives including Zuckerberg, and the plaintiff herself about just how culpable big tech companies should be for contributing to KGM’s mental health struggles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Were her issues pre-existing, or exacerbated by her home life, or deepened by social media?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta and Google fought back by underscoring the emotional and physical abuse her medical records indicated she experienced at home. Lawyers for the tech companies also hammered the point that Kaley’s own therapist never documented that social media use was a factor in her mental health problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the witness stand, KGM testified that using social media affected her self-worth, as she got further drawn into the apps and withdrew from friends and family. She developed depression and body dysmorphia, she said, as she continuously compared herself to others and used beauty filters to enhance her appearance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She so craved the validation of social media, she said, that she would run off to the bathroom at school to check the number of “likes” her posts had received. She testified that it was hard to concentrate on school because all she wanted to do was stay glued to her social media feeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The jury was not tasked with deciding whether Meta and Google had created Kaley’s mental health woes, but rather if her compulsive social media use was a “substantial factor” in her struggles and if the defective design of the platforms was the direct cause of the distress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lanier, who is known for trotting out large exhibits for trial spectacle, closed his questioning of Zuckerberg with one such display.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lanier and several of his associates held up a 35-foot collage featuring hundreds of selfies Kaley had posted to Instagram, many of which used beauty filters, just as she was struggling with body-image issues. Zuckerberg looked on, as Lanier peppered him with questions about how and why a girl under the age of 13, Meta’s minimum age to create an account, was able to post to the app so obsessively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his closing argument, Lanier drew the jury’s attention to internal documents showing how top officials at Meta and Google were aware of how its products were causing harm to young people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t naysay the opportunity to make money,” Lanier said. “But when you’re making money off of kids, you have to do it responsibly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>NPR’s Shannon Bond contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california\">California\u003c/a> jury on Wednesday found that Meta and Google’s YouTube were to blame for the depression and anxiety of a woman who compulsively used social media as a small child, awarding her $6 million in a rare verdict holding Silicon Valley accountable for its role in fueling a youth mental health crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The jurors concluded that Meta and Google should pay the woman $3 million in compensatory damages and an additional $3 million in punitive damages, with Meta on the hook for 70% of that amount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the verdict was read, the plaintiff, known only as Kaley, looked straight ahead stony-faced, while her lawyers shook their heads in approval. The lawyers for Meta and Google did not react to the jury’s decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outcome of this case could influence thousands of other consolidated cases against the social media companies. The litigation has drawn comparisons to the legal crusade that led to industry changes against Big Tobacco in the 1990s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joseph VanZandt, the co-lead lawyer for families and others suing social media companies, said Wednesday’s judgement is a step toward holding Silicon Valley giants accountable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But this verdict is bigger than one case. For years, social media companies have profited from targeting children while concealing their addictive and dangerous design features. Today’s verdict is a referendum — from a jury, to an entire industry — that accountability has arrived,” he said in a joint statement with the plaintiff’s legal team.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta and Google said they disagree with the verdict. Meta said it is weighing its legal options and Google plans to appeal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site,” said Google spokesman José Castañeda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The verdict from a Los Angeles jury over the harms of social media comes a day after a separate jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/03/24/g-s1-115019/new-mexico-meta-children-mental-health\">pay $375 million in damages\u003c/a> for failing to protect young users from child predators on Instagram and Facebook. The New Mexico jury found Meta responsible for misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms, declaring that the tech company had flouted state consumer protection laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That trial will also enter a second phase, in May, in which a judge will decide whether Meta created a public nuisance and if the company must pay additional penalties to address harms. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said he will also ask the court to force changes to make Meta’s apps safer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Juries in New Mexico and California have recognized that Meta’s public deception and design features are putting children in harm’s way,” Torrez said in a statement on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12077556\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12077556\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2261837336-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2261837336-1-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2261837336-1-2000x1333.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2261837336-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2261837336-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/03/GettyImages-2261837336-1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves Los Angeles Superior Court after testifying in a trial examining whether social media companies designed their platforms to be addictive to children on Feb. 18, 2026. (Photo by Apu GOMES / AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The blockbuster verdicts land against the backdrop of school districts and state lawmakers around the country limiting or banning phone use in schools. This week’s verdicts mark the first time juries have decided that tech companies are at least partially liable for online and off-line dangers kids and teenagers encounter after incessantly using social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over a more than month-long trial in Los Angeles, the jury of five men and seven women heard competing narratives about what role social media platforms played in the mental health struggles of a woman identified as KGM, or Kaley, a now-20-year-old from Chico, Calif., who said she first started using YouTube at 6 years old and Instagram when she was 11.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawyers for KGM argued that Instagram and YouTube were deliberately designed to be addictive and the companies knew the platforms were harming young people, while the tech companies countered that their services cannot be blamed for complex mental health issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>KGM’s legal team showed the jury internal documents from Meta in which CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives described the company’s efforts to attract and keep kids and teens on its platforms. One document said: “If we wanna win big with teens, we must bring them in as tweens,” and another internal memo showed that 11-year-olds were four times as likely to keep coming back to Instagram, compared with competing apps, despite the platform requiring users to be at least 13 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under questioning about these documents, Zuckerberg told the jury that keeping young users safe has always been a company priority. “If people feel like they’re not having a good experience, why would they keep using the product?” Zuckerberg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trial is a test case, known as a bellwether, tied to about 2,000 other pending lawsuits brought by parents and school districts arguing that social media giants should be considered manufacturers of defective products for hooking a generation of young people to social media feeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout the case, the companies insisted that there is no scientific proof that social media causes mental health issues, suggesting that they are being used as a scapegoat for the multi-faceted emotional issues children face that can have many root causes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Snapchat and TikTok were also defendants in the case, but both companies \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/01/27/nx-s1-5684196/social-media-kids-addiction-mental-health-trial\">settled\u003c/a> before the trial began.\u003cbr>\nL.A. case focused on design of social media platforms to overcome liability shield\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For decades, tech companies have avoided legal liability over the content that appears on their sites because of a federal law known as \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/05/11/994395889/how-one-mans-fight-against-an-aol-troll-sealed-the-tech-industrys-power\">Section 230\u003c/a> of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which says that tech companies are not legally responsible for what their users post. This has made it difficult to bring cases over social media harms to trial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Los Angeles case, lawyers took a different approach by focusing on how tech companies built their platforms. They argued that features like infinite scroll, constant notifications, autoplay and beauty filters made apps like Instagram and YouTube equivalent to a “digital casino,” which young people found too irresistible to put down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By taking this tack, the lawyers pursued a case alleging defective design that was able to get around the high bar set by Section 230. It’s not what users post, the lawyers argued, but the very architecture of social media platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How do you make a child never put down the phone? That’s called the engineering of addiction,” said KGM’s lawyer Mark Lanier, a Texas trial attorney and part-time pastor who had a penchant for drawing on documents with markers on overhead project slides to keep the jury engaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the course of five weeks, jurors heard from therapists, engineers, tech executives including Zuckerberg, and the plaintiff herself about just how culpable big tech companies should be for contributing to KGM’s mental health struggles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Were her issues pre-existing, or exacerbated by her home life, or deepened by social media?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta and Google fought back by underscoring the emotional and physical abuse her medical records indicated she experienced at home. Lawyers for the tech companies also hammered the point that Kaley’s own therapist never documented that social media use was a factor in her mental health problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the witness stand, KGM testified that using social media affected her self-worth, as she got further drawn into the apps and withdrew from friends and family. She developed depression and body dysmorphia, she said, as she continuously compared herself to others and used beauty filters to enhance her appearance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She so craved the validation of social media, she said, that she would run off to the bathroom at school to check the number of “likes” her posts had received. She testified that it was hard to concentrate on school because all she wanted to do was stay glued to her social media feeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The jury was not tasked with deciding whether Meta and Google had created Kaley’s mental health woes, but rather if her compulsive social media use was a “substantial factor” in her struggles and if the defective design of the platforms was the direct cause of the distress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lanier, who is known for trotting out large exhibits for trial spectacle, closed his questioning of Zuckerberg with one such display.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lanier and several of his associates held up a 35-foot collage featuring hundreds of selfies Kaley had posted to Instagram, many of which used beauty filters, just as she was struggling with body-image issues. Zuckerberg looked on, as Lanier peppered him with questions about how and why a girl under the age of 13, Meta’s minimum age to create an account, was able to post to the app so obsessively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his closing argument, Lanier drew the jury’s attention to internal documents showing how top officials at Meta and Google were aware of how its products were causing harm to young people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t naysay the opportunity to make money,” Lanier said. “But when you’re making money off of kids, you have to do it responsibly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>NPR’s Shannon Bond contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Artificial intelligence has rapidly changed what tech workers in the Bay Area do every day. Whether you’re a software engineer or you work in sales, most employees at tech firms are expected to regularly use AI.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rya Jetha with the San Francisco Standard explains how AI is affecting tech employees across the industry, and how these changes could be a sign of what’s to come for the rest of us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2026/02/19/ai-writes-code-now-s-left-software-engineers/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI writes the code now. What’s left for software engineers?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2026/03/05/engineer-2025-ai-land-everyone-s-builder-now/\">‘Engineer’ is so 2025. In AI land, everyone’s a ‘builder’ now\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2026/01/28/ai-booming-tech-jobs-san-francisco/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI is booming. Tech jobs in San Francisco are not\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco-Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8417277777&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:00:03] \u003c/em>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevara and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. If you want a glimpse into what artificial intelligence could mean for the future of work, life for the average tech worker in San Francisco right now is a pretty good place to look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:00:26] \u003c/em>Engineering and what’s happening in software engineering is a bellwether for what might happen in other industries. And you see the people building this technology warning about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:00:38] \u003c/em>Whether you’re writing code or working in sales, almost everyone in tech is expected to use AI. And even those in tech warn that it’s a sign of what’s to come for workers in other industries. Today, how AI is changing work inside the tech industry and why it matters to the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:10] \u003c/em>For startups and for some medium and big tech companies, and this is specifically in the Bay Area, their CEOs are demanding AI fluency from their workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:23] \u003c/em>Rya Jetha is a tech culture reporter for the San Francisco Standard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:28] \u003c/em>That basically means you need to come into the job willing to use AI and not being an AI skeptic and also being willing to change your work processes and develop completely different new ways of doing your job using AI. Even if you’re not a software engineer, you are being expected to use a AI. At big old companies, I think for software engineers, it’s you are basically deemed a dinosaur if you’re not using AI coding tools. Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, he recently said that he expects the workforce to be thinned over the next few years because of AI. And he encourages employees to experiment with AI as much as possible and take trainings and play around with it. To basically bulletproof their career, if they don’t want to be one of the casualties of the thinning of the workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:23] \u003c/em>I mean, it sounds like these workers don’t really have a choice to be anything other than pro-AI. I would say that is largely accurate in San Francisco, yeah. I guess what do we mean when we say these workers are using AI in their work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:41] \u003c/em>For software engineers, it’s basically a must to be using OpenAI codecs or Claude code, which are both coding tools. And you’re basically expected to be deploying multiple agents at a time. And to explain how that works, an agent is basically software that can autonomously do work for you on your behalf end to end. And so as a software engineer, I might be like, ‘OK, this is a problem I have to solve. Go and do it.’ The agent will figure out the best way to do it. It will create a roadmap for itself. It will do it, it will test it, and it will come back to you with everything completely done. When we are thinking about why software engineers are freaked out about AI, it’s because in previous waves of automation, they still had to understand their jobs and design things, even though they were getting the efficiency gains. But some software engineers I’ve spoken to who are rank and file at big tech companies, they’re like, this is fundamentally different. AI has ideas about how to do my own job that I have spent years and years training for. And in many ways, engineers have created the perfect training ground for AI to do their jobs because it’s a fundamentally digital job. And there are huge repositories of code online for AI have been coded on. I think it’s worth discussing how non-technical people are being expected to use AI. So say that I work in sales or marketing or communications, I’m still being expected to play around with AI, whether that’s using AI to make slides or to do research for me or to use it for writing as well. It’s just an expectation now that even non-technical people are even using AI to like do coding, because you can just prompt AI in plain English and it will spin up a website for you or spin up another technical data analysis for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:45] \u003c/em>I mean, I feel like everyone has feelings about AI one way or another. How would you describe the vibe inside the tech industry in the Bay Area when it comes to AI right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:55] \u003c/em>I think it really depends on whether you’re talking to startups or people at big tech companies or entry-level workers. I think if you talk to some really tech-pilled people who have fully embraced AI, especially people who work at startups, it is extreme excitement because they can suddenly do so much more with so much less. I was talking to one engineer at a startup who basically said he has had so many side project ideas. And he’s been able to execute every single one of them in the past few months. And before, he would have had to employ four software engineers and pay them exorbitant salaries, but now he just has to pay a few hundred bucks to Anthropic to make all of his software dreams come true. I think if you’re an entry-level Woko, you’re feeling extreme despair about the situation. And even when you go on college campuses, People who are majoring in computer science feel uncertain about the world, which in a previous era would have been crazy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:05:55] \u003c/em>I mean, yeah, I was just telling you before we were recording, one of my closest friends is a software engineer now, and we were just talking about how just 10 years ago, you know, studying computer science was seen as a golden ticket, that it would lead to job security perhaps maybe that more than any other major at the time and and that that meritocracy was real, and now I feel like that’s just completely unfolding for him with AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:06:27] \u003c/em>I was interviewing a computer science professor at UC Berkeley for the story and he said they worked really hard in high school to get into the best computer science programs thinking that it was the golden ticket. They get to college and they work really hard to ace all their computer science classes so they can land that prestigious big tech job and now they’re in those jobs and The promise is not all that it was chalked up to be It’s very existentially upsetting when you sink, you know, anywhere from like four to six years of your life, honing your craft to write good code and suddenly a machine is able to do all of it. People who are trying to get their career started or entry-level workers with not that much experience, it’s a very, very scary time. Coding and software engineering jobs have been totally upended by AI, but at the same time, you now, there’s… There’s always a debate about what job is going to be next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:31] \u003c/em>Is AI leading to mass layoffs already? Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:45] \u003c/em>I mean, I feel like every week or something, there’s news about layoffs in the tech industry. How much of that has to do with AI taking jobs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:55] \u003c/em>That is a really good question, and I’m sorry to say, but we don’t know. We’ve heard about a lot of layoffs that was Atlassian block laying off 40% of its workforce a few weeks ago. There have been layoffs at Salesforce and Amazon and Pinterest, and they’ve all blamed it either partially or totally on AI. But I think when I speak to exports, they are very skeptical that these layoffs are actually because of AI. If we think back to the pandemic, there was massive hiring because these tech companies were adapting to this new world that we lived in, in terms of e-commerce and streaming. And they arguably over-hired quite a bit. And so it could be that these layoffs are just a product of that pandemic over- hiring, but to get in the head of a tech executive for a second. You look more, you know, techno futuristic and cool to Wall Street if you are blaming your layoffs on AI and not on the fact that you made a hiring mistake during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:03] \u003c/em>Is AI also changing how much work people are expected to do? Like, if you can use AI to code faster, you now have more work to do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:12] \u003c/em>Software engineers specifically, they are being expected to produce 10 times the amount of code that they were before. And I think this has introduced kind of an interesting problem for rank and file software engineers who, let’s say, are on like the oleo side of their career, they really want to understand what they are doing, but they feel like because of the expectations at their companies, they just have to. Use AI tools to generate that code, and they don’t have time to review it and understand what is going on. I think outside of the more technical domains, people using AI, there have been quite a few studies about this, but people using is increasing workload for people. And if you just think of someone generating a super bad presentation using AI or sending you a really sloppy email to go to a customer, I mean, I hear this from friends. It’s like that one colleague who is super chat GPT-pilled and uses chat GPTs for everything and doesn’t really care about the quality of their work. It’s making some people mad that they have to spend more hours correcting their colleagues. And even when they’re experimenting with tools, if companies are mandating them to experiment with their tools, it’s not like they’re being given half a day to do it. They’re expected to do it on top of their current jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:35] \u003c/em>Right, yeah. They’re very real, like, labor implications with this technology.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:39] \u003c/em>Totally. Totally. And I think it’s really interesting because with every technological revolution we’ve kind of been promised that like, oh, we will walk less. In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes also predicted that that technological revolutions would bring in a 15-hour work week and more leisure time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:56] \u003c/em>That sounds so nice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:58] \u003c/em>It sounds so Nice. It doesn’t seem anywhere close though. Because I mean, I think now with AI, people are walking even more than before. And they’re like, oh, where was, where did this promise go? We even walk on the weekends now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:12:16] \u003c/em>I mean, I do think some people might be hearing this and sort of thinking to themselves, like, boo-hoo, the techies are getting all existential because of this tech that in many ways they helped to create or they helped to uplift, but why do you think what is happening among tech workers right now matters to the rest of us?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:12:38] \u003c/em>I think it matters hugely, I think engineering and what’s happening in software engineering is a bellwether for what might happen in other industries. And you see the people building this technology, you’re warning about it. And so I think, even though it’s come for codos forced by virtue of their jobs, there are other careers on the chopping block that aren’t necessarily tech jobs. I mean, customer service agents. Health care. Health care, yeah, lawyers, consultants. And what we’re seeing is that Wall Street is rewarding companies for slashing their workforces. Because a Leno workforce means you have bigger profits, you can reinvest in other things. And so. If CEOs get this like, I want to shave my workforce bug by looking at other companies doing it, I think it could be pretty catastrophic for a lot of people. I mean, I talk to a lot of experts about how this is going to play out, and on the one hand, some are really down on the future. On the other hand, some experts are like, every time there has been a technological transformation or some sort of invention that improves the efficiency of engineering, more software gets built, and it gets democratized. And at a lot of companies, especially, you know… Smaller companies that cannot afford a software engineer and pay them, you know, $300,000 a year Software is the bottleneck Now it is making software cheaper But maybe you still want someone who has technical expertise to build that software for you So it could be that in the future there are way more software engineering jobs than before Maybe there is a future in which we’re gonna go through a small period of transition now and we will live in a world in which there are loads of jobs and there is no long-term disruption to the labor market. And I think that is the big question on everybody’s mind right now is that is this like other technological revolutions or is this fundamentally different.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Artificial intelligence has rapidly changed what tech workers in the Bay Area do every day. Whether you’re a software engineer or you work in sales, most employees at tech firms are expected to regularly use AI.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rya Jetha with the San Francisco Standard explains how AI is affecting tech employees across the industry, and how these changes could be a sign of what’s to come for the rest of us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2026/02/19/ai-writes-code-now-s-left-software-engineers/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI writes the code now. What’s left for software engineers?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2026/03/05/engineer-2025-ai-land-everyone-s-builder-now/\">‘Engineer’ is so 2025. In AI land, everyone’s a ‘builder’ now\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2026/01/28/ai-booming-tech-jobs-san-francisco/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI is booming. Tech jobs in San Francisco are not\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco-Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8417277777&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:00:03] \u003c/em>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevara and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. If you want a glimpse into what artificial intelligence could mean for the future of work, life for the average tech worker in San Francisco right now is a pretty good place to look.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:00:26] \u003c/em>Engineering and what’s happening in software engineering is a bellwether for what might happen in other industries. And you see the people building this technology warning about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:00:38] \u003c/em>Whether you’re writing code or working in sales, almost everyone in tech is expected to use AI. And even those in tech warn that it’s a sign of what’s to come for workers in other industries. Today, how AI is changing work inside the tech industry and why it matters to the rest of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:10] \u003c/em>For startups and for some medium and big tech companies, and this is specifically in the Bay Area, their CEOs are demanding AI fluency from their workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:23] \u003c/em>Rya Jetha is a tech culture reporter for the San Francisco Standard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:28] \u003c/em>That basically means you need to come into the job willing to use AI and not being an AI skeptic and also being willing to change your work processes and develop completely different new ways of doing your job using AI. Even if you’re not a software engineer, you are being expected to use a AI. At big old companies, I think for software engineers, it’s you are basically deemed a dinosaur if you’re not using AI coding tools. Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, he recently said that he expects the workforce to be thinned over the next few years because of AI. And he encourages employees to experiment with AI as much as possible and take trainings and play around with it. To basically bulletproof their career, if they don’t want to be one of the casualties of the thinning of the workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:23] \u003c/em>I mean, it sounds like these workers don’t really have a choice to be anything other than pro-AI. I would say that is largely accurate in San Francisco, yeah. I guess what do we mean when we say these workers are using AI in their work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:41] \u003c/em>For software engineers, it’s basically a must to be using OpenAI codecs or Claude code, which are both coding tools. And you’re basically expected to be deploying multiple agents at a time. And to explain how that works, an agent is basically software that can autonomously do work for you on your behalf end to end. And so as a software engineer, I might be like, ‘OK, this is a problem I have to solve. Go and do it.’ The agent will figure out the best way to do it. It will create a roadmap for itself. It will do it, it will test it, and it will come back to you with everything completely done. When we are thinking about why software engineers are freaked out about AI, it’s because in previous waves of automation, they still had to understand their jobs and design things, even though they were getting the efficiency gains. But some software engineers I’ve spoken to who are rank and file at big tech companies, they’re like, this is fundamentally different. AI has ideas about how to do my own job that I have spent years and years training for. And in many ways, engineers have created the perfect training ground for AI to do their jobs because it’s a fundamentally digital job. And there are huge repositories of code online for AI have been coded on. I think it’s worth discussing how non-technical people are being expected to use AI. So say that I work in sales or marketing or communications, I’m still being expected to play around with AI, whether that’s using AI to make slides or to do research for me or to use it for writing as well. It’s just an expectation now that even non-technical people are even using AI to like do coding, because you can just prompt AI in plain English and it will spin up a website for you or spin up another technical data analysis for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:45] \u003c/em>I mean, I feel like everyone has feelings about AI one way or another. How would you describe the vibe inside the tech industry in the Bay Area when it comes to AI right now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:55] \u003c/em>I think it really depends on whether you’re talking to startups or people at big tech companies or entry-level workers. I think if you talk to some really tech-pilled people who have fully embraced AI, especially people who work at startups, it is extreme excitement because they can suddenly do so much more with so much less. I was talking to one engineer at a startup who basically said he has had so many side project ideas. And he’s been able to execute every single one of them in the past few months. And before, he would have had to employ four software engineers and pay them exorbitant salaries, but now he just has to pay a few hundred bucks to Anthropic to make all of his software dreams come true. I think if you’re an entry-level Woko, you’re feeling extreme despair about the situation. And even when you go on college campuses, People who are majoring in computer science feel uncertain about the world, which in a previous era would have been crazy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:05:55] \u003c/em>I mean, yeah, I was just telling you before we were recording, one of my closest friends is a software engineer now, and we were just talking about how just 10 years ago, you know, studying computer science was seen as a golden ticket, that it would lead to job security perhaps maybe that more than any other major at the time and and that that meritocracy was real, and now I feel like that’s just completely unfolding for him with AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:06:27] \u003c/em>I was interviewing a computer science professor at UC Berkeley for the story and he said they worked really hard in high school to get into the best computer science programs thinking that it was the golden ticket. They get to college and they work really hard to ace all their computer science classes so they can land that prestigious big tech job and now they’re in those jobs and The promise is not all that it was chalked up to be It’s very existentially upsetting when you sink, you know, anywhere from like four to six years of your life, honing your craft to write good code and suddenly a machine is able to do all of it. People who are trying to get their career started or entry-level workers with not that much experience, it’s a very, very scary time. Coding and software engineering jobs have been totally upended by AI, but at the same time, you now, there’s… There’s always a debate about what job is going to be next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:31] \u003c/em>Is AI leading to mass layoffs already? Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:45] \u003c/em>I mean, I feel like every week or something, there’s news about layoffs in the tech industry. How much of that has to do with AI taking jobs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:55] \u003c/em>That is a really good question, and I’m sorry to say, but we don’t know. We’ve heard about a lot of layoffs that was Atlassian block laying off 40% of its workforce a few weeks ago. There have been layoffs at Salesforce and Amazon and Pinterest, and they’ve all blamed it either partially or totally on AI. But I think when I speak to exports, they are very skeptical that these layoffs are actually because of AI. If we think back to the pandemic, there was massive hiring because these tech companies were adapting to this new world that we lived in, in terms of e-commerce and streaming. And they arguably over-hired quite a bit. And so it could be that these layoffs are just a product of that pandemic over- hiring, but to get in the head of a tech executive for a second. You look more, you know, techno futuristic and cool to Wall Street if you are blaming your layoffs on AI and not on the fact that you made a hiring mistake during the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:03] \u003c/em>Is AI also changing how much work people are expected to do? Like, if you can use AI to code faster, you now have more work to do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:12] \u003c/em>Software engineers specifically, they are being expected to produce 10 times the amount of code that they were before. And I think this has introduced kind of an interesting problem for rank and file software engineers who, let’s say, are on like the oleo side of their career, they really want to understand what they are doing, but they feel like because of the expectations at their companies, they just have to. Use AI tools to generate that code, and they don’t have time to review it and understand what is going on. I think outside of the more technical domains, people using AI, there have been quite a few studies about this, but people using is increasing workload for people. And if you just think of someone generating a super bad presentation using AI or sending you a really sloppy email to go to a customer, I mean, I hear this from friends. It’s like that one colleague who is super chat GPT-pilled and uses chat GPTs for everything and doesn’t really care about the quality of their work. It’s making some people mad that they have to spend more hours correcting their colleagues. And even when they’re experimenting with tools, if companies are mandating them to experiment with their tools, it’s not like they’re being given half a day to do it. They’re expected to do it on top of their current jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:35] \u003c/em>Right, yeah. They’re very real, like, labor implications with this technology.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:39] \u003c/em>Totally. Totally. And I think it’s really interesting because with every technological revolution we’ve kind of been promised that like, oh, we will walk less. In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes also predicted that that technological revolutions would bring in a 15-hour work week and more leisure time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:56] \u003c/em>That sounds so nice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:58] \u003c/em>It sounds so Nice. It doesn’t seem anywhere close though. Because I mean, I think now with AI, people are walking even more than before. And they’re like, oh, where was, where did this promise go? We even walk on the weekends now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:12:16] \u003c/em>I mean, I do think some people might be hearing this and sort of thinking to themselves, like, boo-hoo, the techies are getting all existential because of this tech that in many ways they helped to create or they helped to uplift, but why do you think what is happening among tech workers right now matters to the rest of us?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rya Jetha: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:12:38] \u003c/em>I think it matters hugely, I think engineering and what’s happening in software engineering is a bellwether for what might happen in other industries. And you see the people building this technology, you’re warning about it. And so I think, even though it’s come for codos forced by virtue of their jobs, there are other careers on the chopping block that aren’t necessarily tech jobs. I mean, customer service agents. Health care. Health care, yeah, lawyers, consultants. And what we’re seeing is that Wall Street is rewarding companies for slashing their workforces. Because a Leno workforce means you have bigger profits, you can reinvest in other things. And so. If CEOs get this like, I want to shave my workforce bug by looking at other companies doing it, I think it could be pretty catastrophic for a lot of people. I mean, I talk to a lot of experts about how this is going to play out, and on the one hand, some are really down on the future. On the other hand, some experts are like, every time there has been a technological transformation or some sort of invention that improves the efficiency of engineering, more software gets built, and it gets democratized. And at a lot of companies, especially, you know… Smaller companies that cannot afford a software engineer and pay them, you know, $300,000 a year Software is the bottleneck Now it is making software cheaper But maybe you still want someone who has technical expertise to build that software for you So it could be that in the future there are way more software engineering jobs than before Maybe there is a future in which we’re gonna go through a small period of transition now and we will live in a world in which there are loads of jobs and there is no long-term disruption to the labor market. And I think that is the big question on everybody’s mind right now is that is this like other technological revolutions or is this fundamentally different.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>After \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12071074/heres-what-california-leaders-said-about-latest-minneapolis-killing\">two killings in Minneapolis\u003c/a>, a group of employees at Google’s parent company added their voices this week to a growing wave of tech workers speaking out and demanding their industry condemn \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101912777/whats-the-endgame-in-dhs-brutality\">violence by federal immigration officers\u003c/a>, even as many executives who spent the past year cozying up to President Donald Trump remain silent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Alphabet Workers Union, which represents roughly 1,400 North American employees, said in a statement on Wednesday that it stands in solidarity with immigrant communities and working people “\u003ca href=\"https://www.alphabetworkersunion.org/press/alphabet-workers-union-statement-condemning-ice\">standing up to ICE terror across the country\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While President Donald Trump and parts of his administration have attempted to smear [Renee] Good and [Alex] Pretti as ‘terrorists,’ we all have seen the footage and know the truth: these citizens were executed in broad daylight while protesting mass deportation, an activity protected under the First Amendment,” the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For much of the second Trump administration, however, such political speech among more progressive rank-and-file tech workers has been chilled as many Silicon Valley leaders have publicly drawn closer to the White House — and as their companies sign lucrative contracts with agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though I don’t directly work on the things that power things like ICE, I feel like I have to stand up and represent and be a force of good where I can,” Alphabet software engineer and AWU member Daniel Freedman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added that many of his colleagues fear Google might fire them for speaking out publicly as the union has. Some employees who protested Google’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11969898/protesters-outside-google-in-san-francisco-call-for-immediate-end-to-project-nimbus\">$1.2 billion contract\u003c/a> with the Israeli government and military have since been let go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12055857 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/111215_Google-Campus_AP_CM_01.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/111215_Google-Campus_AP_CM_01.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/111215_Google-Campus_AP_CM_01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/111215_Google-Campus_AP_CM_01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many more progressive rank-and-file tech workers stopped speaking out after the 2024 election as executives cozied up to Trump. For some, the recent killings in Minneapolis by federal agents mark a turning point. \u003ccite>(Jeff Chiu/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Google did not respond to KQED’s request for comment about the AWU statement. According to Freedman and reporting from Wired, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai and other senior leaders have remained silent, even internally, about the killings in Minneapolis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s not true for every Silicon Valley c-suiter. In contrast to Pichai, for instance, Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote a \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-28/apple-s-cook-calls-for-deescalation-after-latest-ice-shooting\">memo\u003c/a> to employees saying he’s “heartbroken” by the events in Minneapolis, but then said he “had a good conversation with the president” and spoke about a need for “deescalation,” mirroring language used by Trump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other leaders were never friendly with Trump and don’t appear likely to start being so. Vinod Khosla, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capitalists, \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/vkhosla/status/2015647215642186008\">wrote on the social media platform X\u003c/a>, “The video was sickening to watch and the storytelling without facts or with invented fictitious facts by authorities almost unimaginable in a civilized society.”[aside postID=news_12070405 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/CloseAllTabsDataPrivacy.jpg']Former Block executive Mike Brock, who now writes the Substack \u003ca href=\"https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/?utm_source=beehiiv&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter-in-the-loop\">Notes from the Circus\u003c/a>, wrote that many tech workers stopped speaking out after the 2024 presidential election because “they understand they’ll lose their job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the wake of the killings in Minnesota, that wary discretion is evaporating in favor of open rage and upset.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, more than 200 Silicon Valley staffers \u003ca href=\"https://iceout.tech\">published an open letter\u003c/a> urging tech leaders to use their platforms to call for ICE’s removal from U.S. cities. As of this story’s publication, the letter has roughly 1,000 signatories, including employees from Google, Amazon and TikTok — although many declined to list more than their job titles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti were a breaking point,” wrote tech executive Lisa Conn, a signatory of the \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/rdbGCmZEBgFk1OMyCGfwHRw-kk?domain=iceout.tech\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ICEout.tech\u003c/a> letter. “And, this isn’t one corner of the industry. Signers include engineers, VPs, startup founders, and people at AI labs — many who’ve never been politically active before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Industry watchers say there are two key factors reflected in this new agitation among Silicon Valley workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Workers know that many of them and their coworkers could be targets and/or be affected by dramatic changes to the immigration system — including the implementation of new fees and restrictions \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12058586/silicon-valley-dreams-at-risk-current-h-1bs-sidestep-trumps-100k-fee-for-now\">associated with H1B visas\u003c/a>,” UC Irvine law professor Veena Dubal wrote to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11932363\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11932363 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap22234766150296-38718ea7ac763e322f50108cf25682a33d4e9fcd-scaled-e1769721170277.jpg\" alt=\"the outside of an Amazon building\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Last week, more than 200 Silicon Valley workers published an open letter urging tech leaders to use their platforms to call for ICE’s removal from U.S. cities. By publication, the letter had drawn roughly 1,000 signatures, including from employees at Google, Amazon and TikTok, though many signatories listed only their job titles. \u003ccite>(Michel Spingler/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Perhaps more importantly, it is a collective moral recognition about how their own labor may be contributing to the horrors of family separation, detention, deportation, and recent assaults on protestors,” Dubal said. “The reality is that ICE could not engage in their operations without technologies supplied to them through contracts with Palantir, Amazon, and Microsoft.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For all the energizing impact of organizing among rank-and-file employees, ICEOut.Tech and the Alphabet Workers Union both call for Silicon Valley leaders to use their political leverage, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When CEOs called the White House in October over the National Guard threat to SF, Trump backed down,” Conn wrote. “We’re asking them to use that access to do the right thing now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s not just the groups making those calls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>James Dyett, an executive at OpenAI, chided his peers on X over the weekend. “There is far more outrage from tech leaders over a wealth tax than masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets,” he\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/dyett/status/2015193525273743447\"> wrote\u003c/a>, referring to California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12070052/proposal-to-tax-billionaires-ignites-a-political-fight-in-california\">proposed tax on billionaires\u003c/a> that’s prompted some Silicon Valley tech moguls to publicly warn they’d rather leave the state than pay the tax. “Tells you what you need to know about the values of our industry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12071074/heres-what-california-leaders-said-about-latest-minneapolis-killing\">two killings in Minneapolis\u003c/a>, a group of employees at Google’s parent company added their voices this week to a growing wave of tech workers speaking out and demanding their industry condemn \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101912777/whats-the-endgame-in-dhs-brutality\">violence by federal immigration officers\u003c/a>, even as many executives who spent the past year cozying up to President Donald Trump remain silent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Alphabet Workers Union, which represents roughly 1,400 North American employees, said in a statement on Wednesday that it stands in solidarity with immigrant communities and working people “\u003ca href=\"https://www.alphabetworkersunion.org/press/alphabet-workers-union-statement-condemning-ice\">standing up to ICE terror across the country\u003c/a>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While President Donald Trump and parts of his administration have attempted to smear [Renee] Good and [Alex] Pretti as ‘terrorists,’ we all have seen the footage and know the truth: these citizens were executed in broad daylight while protesting mass deportation, an activity protected under the First Amendment,” the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For much of the second Trump administration, however, such political speech among more progressive rank-and-file tech workers has been chilled as many Silicon Valley leaders have publicly drawn closer to the White House — and as their companies sign lucrative contracts with agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though I don’t directly work on the things that power things like ICE, I feel like I have to stand up and represent and be a force of good where I can,” Alphabet software engineer and AWU member Daniel Freedman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He added that many of his colleagues fear Google might fire them for speaking out publicly as the union has. Some employees who protested Google’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11969898/protesters-outside-google-in-san-francisco-call-for-immediate-end-to-project-nimbus\">$1.2 billion contract\u003c/a> with the Israeli government and military have since been let go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12055857 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/111215_Google-Campus_AP_CM_01.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/111215_Google-Campus_AP_CM_01.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/111215_Google-Campus_AP_CM_01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/111215_Google-Campus_AP_CM_01-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many more progressive rank-and-file tech workers stopped speaking out after the 2024 election as executives cozied up to Trump. For some, the recent killings in Minneapolis by federal agents mark a turning point. \u003ccite>(Jeff Chiu/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Google did not respond to KQED’s request for comment about the AWU statement. According to Freedman and reporting from Wired, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai and other senior leaders have remained silent, even internally, about the killings in Minneapolis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s not true for every Silicon Valley c-suiter. In contrast to Pichai, for instance, Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote a \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-28/apple-s-cook-calls-for-deescalation-after-latest-ice-shooting\">memo\u003c/a> to employees saying he’s “heartbroken” by the events in Minneapolis, but then said he “had a good conversation with the president” and spoke about a need for “deescalation,” mirroring language used by Trump.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other leaders were never friendly with Trump and don’t appear likely to start being so. Vinod Khosla, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capitalists, \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/vkhosla/status/2015647215642186008\">wrote on the social media platform X\u003c/a>, “The video was sickening to watch and the storytelling without facts or with invented fictitious facts by authorities almost unimaginable in a civilized society.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Former Block executive Mike Brock, who now writes the Substack \u003ca href=\"https://www.notesfromthecircus.com/?utm_source=beehiiv&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter-in-the-loop\">Notes from the Circus\u003c/a>, wrote that many tech workers stopped speaking out after the 2024 presidential election because “they understand they’ll lose their job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the wake of the killings in Minnesota, that wary discretion is evaporating in favor of open rage and upset.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, more than 200 Silicon Valley staffers \u003ca href=\"https://iceout.tech\">published an open letter\u003c/a> urging tech leaders to use their platforms to call for ICE’s removal from U.S. cities. As of this story’s publication, the letter has roughly 1,000 signatories, including employees from Google, Amazon and TikTok — although many declined to list more than their job titles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti were a breaking point,” wrote tech executive Lisa Conn, a signatory of the \u003ca href=\"https://url.us.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/rdbGCmZEBgFk1OMyCGfwHRw-kk?domain=iceout.tech\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ICEout.tech\u003c/a> letter. “And, this isn’t one corner of the industry. Signers include engineers, VPs, startup founders, and people at AI labs — many who’ve never been politically active before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Industry watchers say there are two key factors reflected in this new agitation among Silicon Valley workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Workers know that many of them and their coworkers could be targets and/or be affected by dramatic changes to the immigration system — including the implementation of new fees and restrictions \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12058586/silicon-valley-dreams-at-risk-current-h-1bs-sidestep-trumps-100k-fee-for-now\">associated with H1B visas\u003c/a>,” UC Irvine law professor Veena Dubal wrote to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11932363\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11932363 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap22234766150296-38718ea7ac763e322f50108cf25682a33d4e9fcd-scaled-e1769721170277.jpg\" alt=\"the outside of an Amazon building\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Last week, more than 200 Silicon Valley workers published an open letter urging tech leaders to use their platforms to call for ICE’s removal from U.S. cities. By publication, the letter had drawn roughly 1,000 signatures, including from employees at Google, Amazon and TikTok, though many signatories listed only their job titles. \u003ccite>(Michel Spingler/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Perhaps more importantly, it is a collective moral recognition about how their own labor may be contributing to the horrors of family separation, detention, deportation, and recent assaults on protestors,” Dubal said. “The reality is that ICE could not engage in their operations without technologies supplied to them through contracts with Palantir, Amazon, and Microsoft.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For all the energizing impact of organizing among rank-and-file employees, ICEOut.Tech and the Alphabet Workers Union both call for Silicon Valley leaders to use their political leverage, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When CEOs called the White House in October over the National Guard threat to SF, Trump backed down,” Conn wrote. “We’re asking them to use that access to do the right thing now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s not just the groups making those calls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>James Dyett, an executive at OpenAI, chided his peers on X over the weekend. “There is far more outrage from tech leaders over a wealth tax than masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets,” he\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/dyett/status/2015193525273743447\"> wrote\u003c/a>, referring to California’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12070052/proposal-to-tax-billionaires-ignites-a-political-fight-in-california\">proposed tax on billionaires\u003c/a> that’s prompted some Silicon Valley tech moguls to publicly warn they’d rather leave the state than pay the tax. “Tells you what you need to know about the values of our industry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "googles-once-grand-vision-for-downtown-west-in-san-jose-still-on-hold-apparently",
"title": "Google’s Once Grand Vision for Downtown West in San José Still on Hold (Apparently)",
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"headTitle": "Google’s Once Grand Vision for Downtown West in San José Still on Hold (Apparently) | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Nearly a decade has passed since \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">San José\u003c/a> agreed to sell more than $110 million worth of land to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/google\">Google\u003c/a>, to support the tech giant’s plans to transform a flagging industrial area of downtown into a vibrant village filled with gleaming new offices, apartments, hotels, shops and parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To date, almost none of the grand development plans — which city and business leaders praised at the time as a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity for the self-proclaimed capital of Silicon Valley — have come to fruition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google has instead laid a thick coat of varnish, both literal and metaphorical, over portions of roughly 80 acres near Diridon Station and the SAP Center, a swath of land it dubbed Downtown West. But the Mountain View-based company has shared scant details publicly about its current timeline or strategy for the collection of land and buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The void has left those living, working or investing here in limbo — without a clear idea of whether a full-blown mixed-use neighborhood will materialize and unable to bank on it when making personal and business decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It seems, quite frankly, pretty long ago where we were promised all of this,” said Alan “Gumby” Marques, the past board president and interim CEO of the San José Downtown Association at the time of an interview in December. “As much as I would like to see that happen, I’ve kind of moved on. I don’t have any dependency on Google coming in and building the campus that they had planned.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google declined a phone interview request from KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12001241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12001241\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Google’s Bay View campus in Mountain View on June 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Zhang Yi/VCG via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In emailed comments, a Google spokesperson did not clearly answer questions about whether it still intends to move forward with the development plans in San José, signaling that it is still evaluating the company’s real estate needs as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company said it has already brought new social activities and gathering spaces to the long-overlooked area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Large endeavors like Downtown West can take multiple decades to complete, and can ebb and flow over the years, Google spokesperson Ryan Lamont said, adding that the company still communicates with developers to evaluate potential future work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some business advocates and residents say they still believe Google intends to eventually build out the area, noting the company hasn’t sold any of the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of land it purchased from the city and private owners.[aside postID=news_12066245 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/12/251208-BART-SILICON-VALLEY-TOUR-MD-03-KQED.jpg']“I think at some point in time in history, they plan on following through,” said Walter Wilson, a co-founder of the Minority Business Consortium and longtime civil rights advocate. His organization was part of a now-inactive group that provided input to Google about its plans for the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was really going. And then all of a sudden it just didn’t,” Wilson said of the development momentum. “I’ve talked to some people at Google, and they say that this is a process that they’re still committed to. It’s not a matter of if, but when.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s clear to anyone familiar with the area is that the project has been pushed far beyond its original timeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San José City Council agreed to sell Google nearly a dozen acres of land in 2018, and the company later indicated some of the first buildings could be completed as soon as 2023 or 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Colorful renderings presented by the company featured an “urban destination” touting more than 7 million square feet of office space, and at least 4,000 new homes in an area in desperate need of housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It also envisioned 500,000 square feet of mixed uses, such as retail shops, cultural and art spaces and hotels, along with 15 acres of parks and plazas. Between 2022 and 2024, the company demolished older structures, including the remnants of an old hardware store and a longtime \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/08/01/farewell-to-pattys-inn-a-san-jose-bar-with-character/\">neighborhood bar called Patty’s Inn\u003c/a> that slung beer and other beverages for nearly 90 years, to make way for what was to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with the lack of any new construction following those demolition efforts, some people have lost hope for a drastically reshaped neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069845\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069845\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-01-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign for proposed development in front of San José Diridon Station in San José on Dec. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“To be honest, I’m not counting on it, you know?” said Jay Meduri, the owner of Poor House Bistro, a Cajun- and Italian-inspired restaurant that operated for years on the corner of Barack Obama Boulevard and San Fernando Street, before he sold the site to Google.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company helped him relocate the restaurant to a new location in Little Italy in 2022, where he formally reopened in 2023 after operating temporarily out of food trucks and cloud kitchens. He said most of the people he used to communicate with at Google have moved on or been laid off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meduri said he has no hard feelings toward Google, but he does get a bit wistful sometimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have to say it’s bittersweet when I drive by there every day, and I used to see where we were located and now that’s completely dug out and getting leveled out. And then Patty’s Inn, which was across the street and kind of a historic staple to San José — now they have containers,” he said.[aside postID=news_12068653 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/IMG_6335.jpg']“Who knows when Google Downtown West is going to be completed. But hopefully it’s while I’m still operating the restaurant and can enjoy all these visions that I saw of making this Downtown West a hopping spot, right? So, it remains to be seen when that’s gonna happen or if it happens,” Meduri said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the lack of action, project supporters, including current and former city officials and business boosters, say they’re confident Google is still committed to the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congressman Sam Liccardo, who spearheaded San José’s deals with Google when he was mayor from 2015 through 2022, said the city has already gained “enormous benefit” from the tech giant’s presence and its land-buying spree, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/09/16/google-village-downtown-san-jose-property-value-jump-real-estate-tech/\">some estimates\u003c/a> have pegged at several hundred million dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The properties the company bought have significantly increased in assessed value, boosting the tax base for the city and county. Google also donated $12.5 million to nonprofits and community-serving organizations and programs, out of a plan to eventually pour $200 million into such efforts, and is bringing in new tenants to give life to the area, Liccardo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A whole host of things [are] bringing people into a part of downtown where a few years ago, you could shoot a cannon down the street and not hit anybody,” Liccardo said. “You’re now starting to see activity and that will make, obviously, that part of the downtown much more attractive for future office tenants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceTemp\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069848\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069848\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-04-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The former Kearny Pattern Works and Foundry in San José on Dec. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Google, through a subcontractor, has boosted what it calls the Creekside area with the recent opening of a beer garden run by local favorite Hapa’s Brewing Company. It has also repurposed a parking lot where Patty’s Inn once stood for events centered around food trucks, including art, fitness, cultural gatherings and hockey watch parties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Preservation Action Council of San José, which pushes for historic preservation, education and appreciation in the city, is opening a rummage and reuse hub soon in a former warehouse, and has plans for a racket sport facility where Poor House Bistro once stood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liccardo said it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Google is not putting shovels in the ground for new offices in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which upended work culture and contributed to massive office space vacancies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the third quarter of 2025, national vacancy rates were nearly 19%, according to\u003ca href=\"https://www.cbre.com/insights/figures/silicon-valley-office-snapshot-q3-2025\"> commercial real estate firm CBRE\u003c/a>. While the Silicon Valley office market was about 17%, in San José’s downtown core, it was 32%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069846\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069846\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-02-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Templo La Hermosa is boarded up and behind a chain link fence in San José on Dec. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Google has tried to do something and ran headfirst into a global pandemic. And like virtually every other entity that planned to build offices or office expansion, they put the brakes on their plan. And I expect those brakes will be in place for several years,” Liccardo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liccardo said he thinks Google is “going to act like any landowner would at a time of great economic uncertainty,” and may simply sit on the land until it’s clear they need more office space. “And that’s certainly not now, and it’s probably not going to be next year either,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the potential expansion of the artificial intelligence-driven economy could push Google’s original development plans into reality, it’s also possible the company may need to “reimagine” uses for the land to skew more toward housing, Liccardo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bert Weaver, a board member of the Delmas Park Neighborhood Association, representing residents whose homes abut Google’s planned village, said he thinks the company has been a good neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the company listened to input from residents and local organizations, maintains and secures the parking lots and buildings it owns, and puts on events at the Creekside area that are “very well attended.” Even if the development has stalled for now, Weaver said he’s “cautiously optimistic” the plans will eventually shape up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069857\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-16-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-16-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-16-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-16-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign for Creekside San José in front of the lot where the Poor House stood in San José on Dec. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I mean, I hear occasional comments from neighbors that ‘No, Google is never going to come here,’ and all that. But I really don’t feel that way. And a number of my friends, a number of leaders of our group, feel the same way, that one day they will. As business improves, things will begin to happen,” Weaver said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the neighborhood association leaders had a meeting with a Google representative in October, where no timelines were shared, but the company “sort of tried to assuage our fears and remind us that the bad rumors are not necessarily true, but, you know, they’re still there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Hannah Coffee, a cafe across from SAP Center, customers are mostly neighborhood residents and people who work nearby at local businesses or for the San José Sharks, according to Andrew Harms, a manager at the shop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harms said that since he moved to the area about three years ago, he has heard a lot about the Google development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069859\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069859\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-19-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-19-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-19-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-19-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign on a fence commemorating the Stephen’s Meat Products sign in San José on Dec. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The privatization of any amount of space here is always, I think, a concerning thing to people, whether or not it affects their day-to-day lives, because it’ll change the landscape of the city forever, potentially,” Harms said. When the project was moving through the city approval process years ago, many residents and community organizations expressed concerns about gentrification and whether the development would benefit some while hurting others. But more jobs, housing, liveliness and gathering spaces would be a net benefit for the area, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the lack of substantial progress on the plans has been noticeable, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s strange to hand the golden keys, so to speak, to Google and have them do basically nothing with the space,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jen Baker, San José’s director of economic development, who came to the city last summer from the Pacific Northwest, sees the area with fresh eyes. She expressed optimism about the potential of not only Downtown West, but the broader 250-acre Diridon Station area, where the city has envisioned millions more square feet of office space and up to 12,000 homes, including Google’s original plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069860\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069860\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-21-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-21-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-21-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-21-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of three Victorian-era homes on W. Julian Street in San José now owned by Google that could eventually be relocated as part of the company’s development plans for the area on Dec. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s really a unique and amazing site and space. How many West Coast cities have potentially developable acreage that is in downtown or downtown adjacent to really accomplish a major vision?” Baker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pandemic’s effects on the economy and office markets have meant that projects didn’t move at the pace many were hoping for, Baker said, but she sees “an amazing canvas of opportunity” there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I realize that the timeline for people is not what was anticipated,” Baker said, “but I’m very bullish that something amazing will be realized.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Nearly a decade has passed since \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">San José\u003c/a> agreed to sell more than $110 million worth of land to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/google\">Google\u003c/a>, to support the tech giant’s plans to transform a flagging industrial area of downtown into a vibrant village filled with gleaming new offices, apartments, hotels, shops and parks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To date, almost none of the grand development plans — which city and business leaders praised at the time as a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity for the self-proclaimed capital of Silicon Valley — have come to fruition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google has instead laid a thick coat of varnish, both literal and metaphorical, over portions of roughly 80 acres near Diridon Station and the SAP Center, a swath of land it dubbed Downtown West. But the Mountain View-based company has shared scant details publicly about its current timeline or strategy for the collection of land and buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The void has left those living, working or investing here in limbo — without a clear idea of whether a full-blown mixed-use neighborhood will materialize and unable to bank on it when making personal and business decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It seems, quite frankly, pretty long ago where we were promised all of this,” said Alan “Gumby” Marques, the past board president and interim CEO of the San José Downtown Association at the time of an interview in December. “As much as I would like to see that happen, I’ve kind of moved on. I don’t have any dependency on Google coming in and building the campus that they had planned.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google declined a phone interview request from KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12001241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12001241\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Google’s Bay View campus in Mountain View on June 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Zhang Yi/VCG via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In emailed comments, a Google spokesperson did not clearly answer questions about whether it still intends to move forward with the development plans in San José, signaling that it is still evaluating the company’s real estate needs as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company said it has already brought new social activities and gathering spaces to the long-overlooked area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Large endeavors like Downtown West can take multiple decades to complete, and can ebb and flow over the years, Google spokesperson Ryan Lamont said, adding that the company still communicates with developers to evaluate potential future work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some business advocates and residents say they still believe Google intends to eventually build out the area, noting the company hasn’t sold any of the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of land it purchased from the city and private owners.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“I think at some point in time in history, they plan on following through,” said Walter Wilson, a co-founder of the Minority Business Consortium and longtime civil rights advocate. His organization was part of a now-inactive group that provided input to Google about its plans for the area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was really going. And then all of a sudden it just didn’t,” Wilson said of the development momentum. “I’ve talked to some people at Google, and they say that this is a process that they’re still committed to. It’s not a matter of if, but when.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s clear to anyone familiar with the area is that the project has been pushed far beyond its original timeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San José City Council agreed to sell Google nearly a dozen acres of land in 2018, and the company later indicated some of the first buildings could be completed as soon as 2023 or 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Colorful renderings presented by the company featured an “urban destination” touting more than 7 million square feet of office space, and at least 4,000 new homes in an area in desperate need of housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It also envisioned 500,000 square feet of mixed uses, such as retail shops, cultural and art spaces and hotels, along with 15 acres of parks and plazas. Between 2022 and 2024, the company demolished older structures, including the remnants of an old hardware store and a longtime \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/08/01/farewell-to-pattys-inn-a-san-jose-bar-with-character/\">neighborhood bar called Patty’s Inn\u003c/a> that slung beer and other beverages for nearly 90 years, to make way for what was to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with the lack of any new construction following those demolition efforts, some people have lost hope for a drastically reshaped neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069845\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069845\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-01-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-01-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign for proposed development in front of San José Diridon Station in San José on Dec. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“To be honest, I’m not counting on it, you know?” said Jay Meduri, the owner of Poor House Bistro, a Cajun- and Italian-inspired restaurant that operated for years on the corner of Barack Obama Boulevard and San Fernando Street, before he sold the site to Google.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company helped him relocate the restaurant to a new location in Little Italy in 2022, where he formally reopened in 2023 after operating temporarily out of food trucks and cloud kitchens. He said most of the people he used to communicate with at Google have moved on or been laid off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meduri said he has no hard feelings toward Google, but he does get a bit wistful sometimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have to say it’s bittersweet when I drive by there every day, and I used to see where we were located and now that’s completely dug out and getting leveled out. And then Patty’s Inn, which was across the street and kind of a historic staple to San José — now they have containers,” he said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Who knows when Google Downtown West is going to be completed. But hopefully it’s while I’m still operating the restaurant and can enjoy all these visions that I saw of making this Downtown West a hopping spot, right? So, it remains to be seen when that’s gonna happen or if it happens,” Meduri said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the lack of action, project supporters, including current and former city officials and business boosters, say they’re confident Google is still committed to the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congressman Sam Liccardo, who spearheaded San José’s deals with Google when he was mayor from 2015 through 2022, said the city has already gained “enormous benefit” from the tech giant’s presence and its land-buying spree, which \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/09/16/google-village-downtown-san-jose-property-value-jump-real-estate-tech/\">some estimates\u003c/a> have pegged at several hundred million dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The properties the company bought have significantly increased in assessed value, boosting the tax base for the city and county. Google also donated $12.5 million to nonprofits and community-serving organizations and programs, out of a plan to eventually pour $200 million into such efforts, and is bringing in new tenants to give life to the area, Liccardo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A whole host of things [are] bringing people into a part of downtown where a few years ago, you could shoot a cannon down the street and not hit anybody,” Liccardo said. “You’re now starting to see activity and that will make, obviously, that part of the downtown much more attractive for future office tenants.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"mceTemp\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069848\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069848\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-04-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The former Kearny Pattern Works and Foundry in San José on Dec. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Google, through a subcontractor, has boosted what it calls the Creekside area with the recent opening of a beer garden run by local favorite Hapa’s Brewing Company. It has also repurposed a parking lot where Patty’s Inn once stood for events centered around food trucks, including art, fitness, cultural gatherings and hockey watch parties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Preservation Action Council of San José, which pushes for historic preservation, education and appreciation in the city, is opening a rummage and reuse hub soon in a former warehouse, and has plans for a racket sport facility where Poor House Bistro once stood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liccardo said it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Google is not putting shovels in the ground for new offices in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which upended work culture and contributed to massive office space vacancies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the third quarter of 2025, national vacancy rates were nearly 19%, according to\u003ca href=\"https://www.cbre.com/insights/figures/silicon-valley-office-snapshot-q3-2025\"> commercial real estate firm CBRE\u003c/a>. While the Silicon Valley office market was about 17%, in San José’s downtown core, it was 32%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069846\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069846\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-02-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-02-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Templo La Hermosa is boarded up and behind a chain link fence in San José on Dec. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Google has tried to do something and ran headfirst into a global pandemic. And like virtually every other entity that planned to build offices or office expansion, they put the brakes on their plan. And I expect those brakes will be in place for several years,” Liccardo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liccardo said he thinks Google is “going to act like any landowner would at a time of great economic uncertainty,” and may simply sit on the land until it’s clear they need more office space. “And that’s certainly not now, and it’s probably not going to be next year either,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the potential expansion of the artificial intelligence-driven economy could push Google’s original development plans into reality, it’s also possible the company may need to “reimagine” uses for the land to skew more toward housing, Liccardo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bert Weaver, a board member of the Delmas Park Neighborhood Association, representing residents whose homes abut Google’s planned village, said he thinks the company has been a good neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the company listened to input from residents and local organizations, maintains and secures the parking lots and buildings it owns, and puts on events at the Creekside area that are “very well attended.” Even if the development has stalled for now, Weaver said he’s “cautiously optimistic” the plans will eventually shape up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069857\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-16-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-16-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-16-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-16-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign for Creekside San José in front of the lot where the Poor House stood in San José on Dec. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I mean, I hear occasional comments from neighbors that ‘No, Google is never going to come here,’ and all that. But I really don’t feel that way. And a number of my friends, a number of leaders of our group, feel the same way, that one day they will. As business improves, things will begin to happen,” Weaver said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the neighborhood association leaders had a meeting with a Google representative in October, where no timelines were shared, but the company “sort of tried to assuage our fears and remind us that the bad rumors are not necessarily true, but, you know, they’re still there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Hannah Coffee, a cafe across from SAP Center, customers are mostly neighborhood residents and people who work nearby at local businesses or for the San José Sharks, according to Andrew Harms, a manager at the shop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harms said that since he moved to the area about three years ago, he has heard a lot about the Google development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069859\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069859\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-19-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-19-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-19-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-19-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A sign on a fence commemorating the Stephen’s Meat Products sign in San José on Dec. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The privatization of any amount of space here is always, I think, a concerning thing to people, whether or not it affects their day-to-day lives, because it’ll change the landscape of the city forever, potentially,” Harms said. When the project was moving through the city approval process years ago, many residents and community organizations expressed concerns about gentrification and whether the development would benefit some while hurting others. But more jobs, housing, liveliness and gathering spaces would be a net benefit for the area, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the lack of substantial progress on the plans has been noticeable, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s strange to hand the golden keys, so to speak, to Google and have them do basically nothing with the space,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jen Baker, San José’s director of economic development, who came to the city last summer from the Pacific Northwest, sees the area with fresh eyes. She expressed optimism about the potential of not only Downtown West, but the broader 250-acre Diridon Station area, where the city has envisioned millions more square feet of office space and up to 12,000 homes, including Google’s original plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12069860\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12069860\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-21-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-21-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-21-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/251208-DOWNTOWN-WEST-MD-21-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of three Victorian-era homes on W. Julian Street in San José now owned by Google that could eventually be relocated as part of the company’s development plans for the area on Dec. 8, 2025. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’s really a unique and amazing site and space. How many West Coast cities have potentially developable acreage that is in downtown or downtown adjacent to really accomplish a major vision?” Baker said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pandemic’s effects on the economy and office markets have meant that projects didn’t move at the pace many were hoping for, Baker said, but she sees “an amazing canvas of opportunity” there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I realize that the timeline for people is not what was anticipated,” Baker said, “but I’m very bullish that something amazing will be realized.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "how-google-organized-opposition-to-a-california-privacy-proposal",
"title": "How Google Organized Opposition to a California Privacy Proposal",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April, Rhode Island resident Navah Hopkins received a plea for her help to defeat legislation thousands of miles away in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ask came from Google, maker of the world’s most used web browser, Chrome. The tech giant sent a message to an email list that Hopkins and other small business owners were subscribed to. Google’s request: To sign a petition opposing \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab566\">Assembly Bill 566\u003c/a>, which would require browsers to provide users with a way to automatically tell websites not to share their personal information with third parties. The measure is sponsored by the California Privacy Protection Agency, which enforces state regulations on such sharing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its email to Hopkins, Google claimed that the legislation would “hurt your ability to use online ads to reach customers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was intentionally misleading people that by this bill passing, they were going to lose out on all of these tools within Google (to advertise),” she told CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outreach was particularly noteworthy because Google had not itself taken a public position on the bill. The tech giant was so quiet about its opposition that Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/josh-lowenthal-164206\">Josh Lowenthal\u003c/a>, the author of AB 566, did not know about Google’s email push until a CalMatters reporter asked. Lowenthal also said his office did not receive small business owners’ signatures or outreach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google’s name wasn’t on the petition either; instead, the document was officially from the “Connected Commerce Council,” which the tech giant backs financially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036476\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2166671481.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036476\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2166671481.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"706\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2166671481.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2166671481-800x552.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2166671481-1020x703.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2166671481-160x110.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Google logo is displayed in front of company headquarters during the Made By Google event on August 13, 2024 in Mountain View, California. Google announced new Pixel phones, watches and AI features at the event. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The largely behind-the-scenes campaign offers a glimpse into how the tech giant is working to preserve its grip on the online advertising market and how it attempts, without being seen, to shape policies in a state with one of the nation’s strictest privacy protection laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recruiting small businesses to represent the policy interests of a tech giant isn’t new. Last year, Google successfully blocked \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240ab3048\">a similar bill\u003c/a> — ultimately vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom — by adopting the same tactic, reaching out to small businesses via email lists, according to a message obtained by CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no telling how effective Google’s lobbying on the measure has been this year, or how many people it successfully mobilized. Experts warn that the strategy could backfire if the people it reaches out to, like the small business owners, aren’t buying what the company is selling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But before the browser bill reached its final floor vote, Lowenthal amended it to delay the effective date until 2027 and to add liability protections for browser companies like Google.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12054490 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/ChatGPTGetty-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked who advocated for that language, Lowenthal said he’d taken input from “colleagues and stakeholders” to shape up the “strongest possible bill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With any bill that’s been vetoed before, it takes some give-and-take to get it across the finish line,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill cleared the Legislature and headed to the governor’s desk Thursday after this story was published.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google did not respond to multiple requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google ranked among the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/data/2025/04/california-lobbying-spending-2024/\">most active lobbyists in California\u003c/a> last year, spending more to influence the opinions of elected officials \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/11/google-lobbying-california/\">than it had in the previous 20 years combined\u003c/a>. The lobbying was aimed at battling AI regulation, local news funding requirements, and a prior version of the browser bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, it has disclosed pouring nearly $700,000 into lobbying state leaders on bills including AB 566. Google has also increased lobbying spending in many \u003ca href=\"https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/publications/google-refines-50-state-lobby-strategy-austin-ahlman\">other statehouses\u003c/a>, according to the Open Markets Institute. With inaction in Congress, states have led the way in tech regulation in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s hard to trace Google’s full influence when the company does not publicly share its position on bills like AB 566, instead paying groups like the California Chamber of Commerce and Connected Commerce Council to influence legislators on its behalf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/082125_CA-Legislature_FG_CM_37-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"A person, with white hair and wearing a gray suit, stands in front of a podium with a microphone on it while they speak.\">\u003cfigcaption>Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal at the dais during an Assembly floor session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Aug. 21, 2025. \u003cem>(Fred Greaves for CalMatters)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Google registered to lobby 17 bills this year that sought to do things like place \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab56\">warning labels on social media\u003c/a> or protect people from \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb503\">algorithms that make health care decisions\u003c/a>, but the company only publicly stated its position on one bill that sought to require\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1043\"> online age verification\u003c/a>, according to\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/\"> state filings and Digital Democracy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google’s lobbying tactics, while not illegal, demonstrate the sway money has over policies, said Sean McMorris, the transparency, ethics, and accountability program manager at California Common Cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This type of activity … exemplifies the skewed playing field that we have to play on,” he said. “It’s important to report on and to point out these strategies and loopholes that money can afford you the privilege to engage in, and the public has every right to scrutinize whether that is just or not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Google really believes this bill shouldn’t become a law, its lobbyists should show up to testify at a public hearing, not behave in shadowy ways that undercut democracy, said Brandon Forester, an organizer for MediaJustice, a nonprofit that has been critical of the influence of of Big Tech companies and internet service providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12001241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12001241\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Google’s Bay View campus in Mountain View on June 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Zhang Yi/VCG via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“None of us wants to enter a surveillance marketplace every time that we go on the internet,” he said. “Part of the reason they need to do the shadow lobbying is because the things that they want to do to achieve their infinite growth model is not good for the public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 566 is not the only threat Google faces to its grip on how people surf the web. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-09-02/google-chrome-decision\">judge ruled\u003c/a> last month that the company may no longer enter into exclusive distribution deals for Chrome or Google search. And Chrome faces new competition from a \u003ca href=\"https://www.platformer.news/ai-web-browsers-openai-perplexity-opera/?ref=platformer-newsletter\">number of AI-powered browsers entering the market\u003c/a>, reportedly to \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/openai-release-web-browser-challenge-google-chrome-2025-07-09/\">soon include\u003c/a> one from ChatGPT maker OpenAI.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Onerous mandate or consumer convenience?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Under a 2018 state law, California businesses \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/08/companies-make-it-hard-to-delete-personal-data/\">must provide customers\u003c/a> with a way to forbid the sharing or sale of their personal information to businesses. AB 566 seeks to streamline that process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Browsers such as DuckDuckGo, Brave, and Firefox already have privacy features that, once enabled, \u003ca href=\"https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/global-privacy-control\">automatically send an opt-out signal\u003c/a> to each website the user goes to.[aside postID=forum_2010101911184 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2025/09/GettyImages-2204906139-2000x1335.jpg']The California Chamber of Commerce opposes AB 566, arguing it represents an onerous mandate. The measure lacks clarity, regulates browsers that aren’t “consumer-facing” and is hard to implement, the trade association argued in a letter to lawmakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Browsers and devices already compete to offer clear, effective privacy controls,” Ronak Dalami, a lobbyist for the chamber, told lawmakers in July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A similar bill the Legislature passed last year would have required both web browsers and mobile operating systems to offer ways to automatically prohibit the sharing of a user’s personal information, but Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/AB-3048-Veto-Message.pdf\">vetoed\u003c/a> the bill because no major mobile operating system includes such an option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To ensure the ongoing usability of mobile devices, it’s best if design questions are first addressed by developers, rather than by regulators,” Newsom said \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/AB-3048-Veto-Message.pdf\">in a veto message\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bianca Blomquist, California director of nonprofit Small Business Majority, which represents 85,000 small businesses nationwide, was among the business owners who received an email last year from Google, on a mailing list of businesses that participated in the company’s training program, Grow with Google. The letter argued that allowing people to easily stop companies from sharing their personal information would make it more expensive for small businesses to sell their products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Blomquist was skeptical. And while Newsom’s veto message spoke of design risks, she said that most people she talks to “are more concerned about their data being shared than they are too many buttons flashing on a screen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Blomquist, the email is clear evidence that Google was “leveraging” the data it collected from partners for advocacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we find is that small business owners … and partner organizations oftentimes sign on to support or oppose legislation without having an understanding of what it does.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Connected Commerce Council\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The petition Google circulated this year was authored by \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/30/connected-commerce-council-amazon-google-lobbying-00021801\">Connected Commerce Council\u003c/a>, or 3C, a lobbying group that in 2022 \u003ca href=\"https://connectedcouncil.org/statement-from-the-connected-commerce-council-on-behalf-of-15000-small-business-members-criticizing-the-senate-judiciarys-passage-of-the-american-innovation-and-choice-online-act/\">claimed to represent 15,000 small businesses\u003c/a> but lists Google and Amazon as \u003ca href=\"https://connectedcouncil.org/partners/\">funders and partners\u003c/a>. In 2022, Google and Amazon mobilized their users to fight anti-trust bills in Congress by encouraging them to sign a model online petition the council drafted. That year, the nonprofit published and later removed a membership directory of 5,000 small businesses, many of which told Politico \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/30/connected-commerce-council-amazon-google-lobbying-00021801\">they were not members of the organization\u003c/a>.[aside postID=news_12049301 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/07/CAT-%E2%80%94-OG-of-Tech.png']This spring, the group sent a letter to California state lawmakers, arguing that the requirements proposed in AB 566 would cause small businesses to lose out on customer data and make their websites more expensive to operate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Implementing a sweeping experiment that would jeopardize small businesses’ success, limit Californians’ access to relevant products and services, and potentially disrupt access to free web content, is not a sensible way forward,” wrote Rob Retzlaff, executive director of the group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a virtual press conference last month, the organization put forward two California online business owners who oppose the legislation. The owners argued that the browser feature mandated in the bill could inadvertently drive away customers, would block them from sending targeted ads to users who opt out of having their personal information shared, and would make it impossible for customers who opted out to opt back in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they opt out of one thing — maybe they just didn’t want … my weekly emails about moms connecting, but they want to have discounts — how are we going to segment that?” said Michelle Mak, owner of baby product store Mewl Baby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google did not report paying the commerce council any money to lobby on its behalf to the California secretary of state. But Google reported paying the California Chamber of Commerce, the face of its opposition, almost $100,000 to lobby this year. It also reported paying TechNet, which also registered its opposition, $2,500.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Connected Commerce Council spokesperson Jennifer Hodgkins declined to answer a list of questions from CalMatters, instead providing a statement pointing to the organization’s letters to the Legislature, press releases and statements from small business owners featured in its press conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Small business owners are deeply concerned about the impact AB 566 will have on their ability to advertise online, find new customers, and grow,” Hodgkins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12052593\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/CA-state-capitol.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12052593\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/CA-state-capitol.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/CA-state-capitol.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/CA-state-capitol-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/CA-state-capitol-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The State Capitol of California in Sacramento, May 6, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQE)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>John Myers, a spokesperson for the California Chamber of Commerce, declined to answer a CalMatters question about the payments it received from Google.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But McMorris of Common Cause said Google’s payments to the chamber for lobbying should be “closely scrutinized.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it’s not for (AB566), then what was it for?” he said. “That’s where the law gets murky, and you have these wink and nod relationships where both sides know how to play the game without explicitly saying, ‘This is how we are going to play the game.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Mobilizing users a unique tactic\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It tracks that Google turned to small business owners to protect the company’s business model, said Jeremy Mack, director of the\u003ca href=\"http://phoenixprojectnow.com/\"> Phoenix Project\u003c/a>, a group that tries to draw attention to San Francisco Bay Area front organizations secretly funded by tech billionaires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mack said the practice is reminiscent of how Uber and Lyft mobilized people who use ride-hailing apps to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/2024/07/prop-22-california-gig-work-law-upheld/\">support Proposition 22\u003c/a> and keep gig workers from being defined as employees instead of contractors, and tactics embraced by apartment landlords and realtor groups.[aside postID=news_12052617 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/GETTYIMAGES-2228237489-KQED.jpg']“It’s not surprising that Google would do this, but it’s definitely good to be able to flag this for people and put it on their radar,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike other industries seeking to influence policy, tech companies can mobilize users through their online platforms, said Austin Ahlman, a researcher who tracks Google lobbying efforts in state capitals for the Open Markets Institute. It’s part of a long pattern of tech companies using small businesses that rely on their platforms to preempt regulation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta also has a history of recruiting small businesses to represent its interests, and Google and Meta threatened or prevented people in \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/18/time-to-reactivate-myspace-the-day-australia-woke-up-to-a-facebook-news-blackout\">Australia\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/how-the-google-news-blackout-was-avoided-1.7045601\">Canada\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/products/news/california-journalism-preservation-act-puts-news-ecosystem-at-risk/\">California\u003c/a> from seeing the news to oppose a demand that the companies pay to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/05/google-california-local-news/\">link to news websites\u003c/a>. An earlier, prominent instance of tech companies using their platforms to influence legislation came around the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act when major companies, including Google, organized to shut down their websites for a day in September 2012 to oppose those laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mack thinks mobilizing users has been devastatingly effective, but companies probably do it sparingly because if they do it too often people will be more aware of how much control large tech companies have over people’s information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d call it anti-democratic, but I wouldn’t call it desperate, because, frankly, it mostly works,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Powerful companies typically combine traditional lobbying and strategies used by civil society organizations when regulatory pressures threaten their core business model, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://academic.oup.com/ser/article/21/4/1917/7202313\">2023 research paper\u003c/a> about corporate lobbying campaigns. Those tactics were historically associated with the fossil fuel, pharmaceutical and tobacco industries, but tech companies have innovated on and rejuvenated the lobbying form. They can do so more effectively because they can tap into user data and their platforms give them unmediated communication with customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies typically recruit users to advance their policy initiatives when they sense a threat to their business and no longer believe conventional lobbying will be sufficient, said UCLA sociology professor Edward Walker, who studies how companies mobilize customers to speak out about legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it only works if users are motivated to speak out, such as when video game players fought efforts to regulate in-game violence, or when for-profit college students opposed a push by the Obama administration to keep them from receiving federal student aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s important to know that these kinds of grassroots lobbying strategies, or user mobilization strategies, are a double-edged sword. It’s not a given that they’re always going to work in your favor,” he said. “If you do this in a scattershot way, you really increase the risk it’s going to backfire on you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>For the record\u003c/strong>: An earlier version of this post misstated Uber and Lyft’s position on Prop. 22.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/09/google-lobbying/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April, Rhode Island resident Navah Hopkins received a plea for her help to defeat legislation thousands of miles away in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ask came from Google, maker of the world’s most used web browser, Chrome. The tech giant sent a message to an email list that Hopkins and other small business owners were subscribed to. Google’s request: To sign a petition opposing \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab566\">Assembly Bill 566\u003c/a>, which would require browsers to provide users with a way to automatically tell websites not to share their personal information with third parties. The measure is sponsored by the California Privacy Protection Agency, which enforces state regulations on such sharing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its email to Hopkins, Google claimed that the legislation would “hurt your ability to use online ads to reach customers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was intentionally misleading people that by this bill passing, they were going to lose out on all of these tools within Google (to advertise),” she told CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outreach was particularly noteworthy because Google had not itself taken a public position on the bill. The tech giant was so quiet about its opposition that Assemblymember \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/josh-lowenthal-164206\">Josh Lowenthal\u003c/a>, the author of AB 566, did not know about Google’s email push until a CalMatters reporter asked. Lowenthal also said his office did not receive small business owners’ signatures or outreach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google’s name wasn’t on the petition either; instead, the document was officially from the “Connected Commerce Council,” which the tech giant backs financially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036476\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2166671481.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036476\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2166671481.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"706\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2166671481.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2166671481-800x552.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2166671481-1020x703.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2166671481-160x110.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Google logo is displayed in front of company headquarters during the Made By Google event on August 13, 2024 in Mountain View, California. Google announced new Pixel phones, watches and AI features at the event. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The largely behind-the-scenes campaign offers a glimpse into how the tech giant is working to preserve its grip on the online advertising market and how it attempts, without being seen, to shape policies in a state with one of the nation’s strictest privacy protection laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recruiting small businesses to represent the policy interests of a tech giant isn’t new. Last year, Google successfully blocked \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240ab3048\">a similar bill\u003c/a> — ultimately vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom — by adopting the same tactic, reaching out to small businesses via email lists, according to a message obtained by CalMatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no telling how effective Google’s lobbying on the measure has been this year, or how many people it successfully mobilized. Experts warn that the strategy could backfire if the people it reaches out to, like the small business owners, aren’t buying what the company is selling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But before the browser bill reached its final floor vote, Lowenthal amended it to delay the effective date until 2027 and to add liability protections for browser companies like Google.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked who advocated for that language, Lowenthal said he’d taken input from “colleagues and stakeholders” to shape up the “strongest possible bill.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With any bill that’s been vetoed before, it takes some give-and-take to get it across the finish line,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill cleared the Legislature and headed to the governor’s desk Thursday after this story was published.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google did not respond to multiple requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google ranked among the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/data/2025/04/california-lobbying-spending-2024/\">most active lobbyists in California\u003c/a> last year, spending more to influence the opinions of elected officials \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/11/google-lobbying-california/\">than it had in the previous 20 years combined\u003c/a>. The lobbying was aimed at battling AI regulation, local news funding requirements, and a prior version of the browser bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year, it has disclosed pouring nearly $700,000 into lobbying state leaders on bills including AB 566. Google has also increased lobbying spending in many \u003ca href=\"https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/publications/google-refines-50-state-lobby-strategy-austin-ahlman\">other statehouses\u003c/a>, according to the Open Markets Institute. With inaction in Congress, states have led the way in tech regulation in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it’s hard to trace Google’s full influence when the company does not publicly share its position on bills like AB 566, instead paying groups like the California Chamber of Commerce and Connected Commerce Council to influence legislators on its behalf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://calmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/082125_CA-Legislature_FG_CM_37-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"A person, with white hair and wearing a gray suit, stands in front of a podium with a microphone on it while they speak.\">\u003cfigcaption>Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal at the dais during an Assembly floor session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Aug. 21, 2025. \u003cem>(Fred Greaves for CalMatters)\u003c/em>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Google registered to lobby 17 bills this year that sought to do things like place \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab56\">warning labels on social media\u003c/a> or protect people from \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb503\">algorithms that make health care decisions\u003c/a>, but the company only publicly stated its position on one bill that sought to require\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1043\"> online age verification\u003c/a>, according to\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/\"> state filings and Digital Democracy\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google’s lobbying tactics, while not illegal, demonstrate the sway money has over policies, said Sean McMorris, the transparency, ethics, and accountability program manager at California Common Cause.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This type of activity … exemplifies the skewed playing field that we have to play on,” he said. “It’s important to report on and to point out these strategies and loopholes that money can afford you the privilege to engage in, and the public has every right to scrutinize whether that is just or not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Google really believes this bill shouldn’t become a law, its lobbyists should show up to testify at a public hearing, not behave in shadowy ways that undercut democracy, said Brandon Forester, an organizer for MediaJustice, a nonprofit that has been critical of the influence of of Big Tech companies and internet service providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12001241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12001241\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/08/GETTYIMAGES-1411232503-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Google’s Bay View campus in Mountain View on June 16, 2022. \u003ccite>(Zhang Yi/VCG via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“None of us wants to enter a surveillance marketplace every time that we go on the internet,” he said. “Part of the reason they need to do the shadow lobbying is because the things that they want to do to achieve their infinite growth model is not good for the public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 566 is not the only threat Google faces to its grip on how people surf the web. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-09-02/google-chrome-decision\">judge ruled\u003c/a> last month that the company may no longer enter into exclusive distribution deals for Chrome or Google search. And Chrome faces new competition from a \u003ca href=\"https://www.platformer.news/ai-web-browsers-openai-perplexity-opera/?ref=platformer-newsletter\">number of AI-powered browsers entering the market\u003c/a>, reportedly to \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/openai-release-web-browser-challenge-google-chrome-2025-07-09/\">soon include\u003c/a> one from ChatGPT maker OpenAI.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Onerous mandate or consumer convenience?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Under a 2018 state law, California businesses \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/08/companies-make-it-hard-to-delete-personal-data/\">must provide customers\u003c/a> with a way to forbid the sharing or sale of their personal information to businesses. AB 566 seeks to streamline that process.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Browsers such as DuckDuckGo, Brave, and Firefox already have privacy features that, once enabled, \u003ca href=\"https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/global-privacy-control\">automatically send an opt-out signal\u003c/a> to each website the user goes to.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The California Chamber of Commerce opposes AB 566, arguing it represents an onerous mandate. The measure lacks clarity, regulates browsers that aren’t “consumer-facing” and is hard to implement, the trade association argued in a letter to lawmakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Browsers and devices already compete to offer clear, effective privacy controls,” Ronak Dalami, a lobbyist for the chamber, told lawmakers in July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A similar bill the Legislature passed last year would have required both web browsers and mobile operating systems to offer ways to automatically prohibit the sharing of a user’s personal information, but Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/AB-3048-Veto-Message.pdf\">vetoed\u003c/a> the bill because no major mobile operating system includes such an option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To ensure the ongoing usability of mobile devices, it’s best if design questions are first addressed by developers, rather than by regulators,” Newsom said \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/AB-3048-Veto-Message.pdf\">in a veto message\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bianca Blomquist, California director of nonprofit Small Business Majority, which represents 85,000 small businesses nationwide, was among the business owners who received an email last year from Google, on a mailing list of businesses that participated in the company’s training program, Grow with Google. The letter argued that allowing people to easily stop companies from sharing their personal information would make it more expensive for small businesses to sell their products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Blomquist was skeptical. And while Newsom’s veto message spoke of design risks, she said that most people she talks to “are more concerned about their data being shared than they are too many buttons flashing on a screen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To Blomquist, the email is clear evidence that Google was “leveraging” the data it collected from partners for advocacy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we find is that small business owners … and partner organizations oftentimes sign on to support or oppose legislation without having an understanding of what it does.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Connected Commerce Council\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The petition Google circulated this year was authored by \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/30/connected-commerce-council-amazon-google-lobbying-00021801\">Connected Commerce Council\u003c/a>, or 3C, a lobbying group that in 2022 \u003ca href=\"https://connectedcouncil.org/statement-from-the-connected-commerce-council-on-behalf-of-15000-small-business-members-criticizing-the-senate-judiciarys-passage-of-the-american-innovation-and-choice-online-act/\">claimed to represent 15,000 small businesses\u003c/a> but lists Google and Amazon as \u003ca href=\"https://connectedcouncil.org/partners/\">funders and partners\u003c/a>. In 2022, Google and Amazon mobilized their users to fight anti-trust bills in Congress by encouraging them to sign a model online petition the council drafted. That year, the nonprofit published and later removed a membership directory of 5,000 small businesses, many of which told Politico \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/30/connected-commerce-council-amazon-google-lobbying-00021801\">they were not members of the organization\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>This spring, the group sent a letter to California state lawmakers, arguing that the requirements proposed in AB 566 would cause small businesses to lose out on customer data and make their websites more expensive to operate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Implementing a sweeping experiment that would jeopardize small businesses’ success, limit Californians’ access to relevant products and services, and potentially disrupt access to free web content, is not a sensible way forward,” wrote Rob Retzlaff, executive director of the group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a virtual press conference last month, the organization put forward two California online business owners who oppose the legislation. The owners argued that the browser feature mandated in the bill could inadvertently drive away customers, would block them from sending targeted ads to users who opt out of having their personal information shared, and would make it impossible for customers who opted out to opt back in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they opt out of one thing — maybe they just didn’t want … my weekly emails about moms connecting, but they want to have discounts — how are we going to segment that?” said Michelle Mak, owner of baby product store Mewl Baby.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google did not report paying the commerce council any money to lobby on its behalf to the California secretary of state. But Google reported paying the California Chamber of Commerce, the face of its opposition, almost $100,000 to lobby this year. It also reported paying TechNet, which also registered its opposition, $2,500.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Connected Commerce Council spokesperson Jennifer Hodgkins declined to answer a list of questions from CalMatters, instead providing a statement pointing to the organization’s letters to the Legislature, press releases and statements from small business owners featured in its press conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Small business owners are deeply concerned about the impact AB 566 will have on their ability to advertise online, find new customers, and grow,” Hodgkins said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12052593\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/CA-state-capitol.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12052593\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/CA-state-capitol.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/CA-state-capitol.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/CA-state-capitol-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/08/CA-state-capitol-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The State Capitol of California in Sacramento, May 6, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQE)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>John Myers, a spokesperson for the California Chamber of Commerce, declined to answer a CalMatters question about the payments it received from Google.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But McMorris of Common Cause said Google’s payments to the chamber for lobbying should be “closely scrutinized.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If it’s not for (AB566), then what was it for?” he said. “That’s where the law gets murky, and you have these wink and nod relationships where both sides know how to play the game without explicitly saying, ‘This is how we are going to play the game.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Mobilizing users a unique tactic\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It tracks that Google turned to small business owners to protect the company’s business model, said Jeremy Mack, director of the\u003ca href=\"http://phoenixprojectnow.com/\"> Phoenix Project\u003c/a>, a group that tries to draw attention to San Francisco Bay Area front organizations secretly funded by tech billionaires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mack said the practice is reminiscent of how Uber and Lyft mobilized people who use ride-hailing apps to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/2024/07/prop-22-california-gig-work-law-upheld/\">support Proposition 22\u003c/a> and keep gig workers from being defined as employees instead of contractors, and tactics embraced by apartment landlords and realtor groups.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It’s not surprising that Google would do this, but it’s definitely good to be able to flag this for people and put it on their radar,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike other industries seeking to influence policy, tech companies can mobilize users through their online platforms, said Austin Ahlman, a researcher who tracks Google lobbying efforts in state capitals for the Open Markets Institute. It’s part of a long pattern of tech companies using small businesses that rely on their platforms to preempt regulation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta also has a history of recruiting small businesses to represent its interests, and Google and Meta threatened or prevented people in \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/18/time-to-reactivate-myspace-the-day-australia-woke-up-to-a-facebook-news-blackout\">Australia\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/how-the-google-news-blackout-was-avoided-1.7045601\">Canada\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://blog.google/products/news/california-journalism-preservation-act-puts-news-ecosystem-at-risk/\">California\u003c/a> from seeing the news to oppose a demand that the companies pay to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/05/google-california-local-news/\">link to news websites\u003c/a>. An earlier, prominent instance of tech companies using their platforms to influence legislation came around the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act when major companies, including Google, organized to shut down their websites for a day in September 2012 to oppose those laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mack thinks mobilizing users has been devastatingly effective, but companies probably do it sparingly because if they do it too often people will be more aware of how much control large tech companies have over people’s information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d call it anti-democratic, but I wouldn’t call it desperate, because, frankly, it mostly works,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Powerful companies typically combine traditional lobbying and strategies used by civil society organizations when regulatory pressures threaten their core business model, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://academic.oup.com/ser/article/21/4/1917/7202313\">2023 research paper\u003c/a> about corporate lobbying campaigns. Those tactics were historically associated with the fossil fuel, pharmaceutical and tobacco industries, but tech companies have innovated on and rejuvenated the lobbying form. They can do so more effectively because they can tap into user data and their platforms give them unmediated communication with customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies typically recruit users to advance their policy initiatives when they sense a threat to their business and no longer believe conventional lobbying will be sufficient, said UCLA sociology professor Edward Walker, who studies how companies mobilize customers to speak out about legislation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it only works if users are motivated to speak out, such as when video game players fought efforts to regulate in-game violence, or when for-profit college students opposed a push by the Obama administration to keep them from receiving federal student aid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s important to know that these kinds of grassroots lobbying strategies, or user mobilization strategies, are a double-edged sword. It’s not a given that they’re always going to work in your favor,” he said. “If you do this in a scattershot way, you really increase the risk it’s going to backfire on you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>For the record\u003c/strong>: An earlier version of this post misstated Uber and Lyft’s position on Prop. 22.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/09/google-lobbying/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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},
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"meta": {
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"order": 15
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 18
},
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
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"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
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