DataGrail CEO Daniel Barber brought together CCPA/CPRA co-author Rick Arney and DataGrail CTO Cathy Polinsky (formerly of StitchFix and Shopify) to discuss the Sephora fine and the future of CPRA enforcement on LinkedIn Live. Here's what the panelists had to say:
A sign of the times
The kinds of data that was shared by the retailer with tracking providers was an important ingredient in the case. One example that Cathy and Rick highlighted was how the California Attorney General specifically called out data points that could infer a woman’s geolocation and health condition – information that is both sensitive and potentially perilous in light of the recent Roe v. Wade reversal.
Should we have seen this coming?
Given recent state and federal efforts surrounding children's online safety, many were surprised that the AG went for a retailer rather than a broker or adtech company. However, having worked with eCommerce companies for many years, Cathy was not surprised. Retailers really want to focus on their specific products and business, so they lean into SaaS over many other industries to help them do that business.
Moving forward
Some final thoughts on preparing for the CPRA and building customer trust: "It's about giving customers choice... I don't think that there's a conflict between personalized experiences and data privacy. But if you break that trust, you will never gain it back from your consumers. And so it’s very important to think about these things from the get-go to build them into your workflows and to be responsive to consumers’ requests."
–Cathy Polinsky
