Greetings from Portsmouth, New Hampshire!

Though we're in the heart of the winter, many of us here in New England are getting warmed up for Sunday's Super Bowl between the Patriots and Los Angeles Rams. Will the Pats go 6-3 or 5-4 during the Belichick-Brady years? I'm pretty sure most of the country hopes it's the latter, but, either way, I hope it's a good game. 

Entertainment aside, the California Consumer Privacy Act has cycled back into the news this week. Friday morning, a group of major ad industry associations sent a letter to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to express its concerns with the law, saying it will "likely have a negative impact on California consumers and businesses from some of the specific language in the law." The group, which includes the Association of National Advertisers, American Advertising Federation, Interactive Advertising Bureau, American Association of Advertising Agencies and Network Advertising Initiative, also goes on to argue that the CCPA "could result in reduced choice and privacy for consumers." 

The attorney general and his office, of course, have been busy in recent weeks gathering public feedback on the CCPA. The ad industry's input here requests that the attorney general "clarify that businesses may offer reasonable options to consumers to choose the types of 'sales' they want to opt out of, the types of data they want deleted, or to completely opt out — and not have to just provide an all-or-nothing option.” 

And though the state will continue to hold more public meetings and accept feedback from stakeholders, other states are looking at California as they weigh state privacy laws as well. "As California goes, so goes the nation," Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan said during a Symantec-hosted event in Washington earlier this week. "Watching how the rules in California are going to be developed is going to be critical." 

We'll be keeping a close eye on the latest CCPA developments so we can continue to offer practical insight and updates to help you be as prepared as possible for 2020. For those of you who have already implemented operations for complying with the EU General Data Protection Regulation, we recently offered a web conference looking into the overlaps and gaps to consider between the two regimes. Our own Angelique Carson also moderated a web conference panel this week for the RSA Conference on how to get ahead of the CCPA. She's joined by a great panel steeped in valuable insight. 

As a final, brief aside, we hit a pretty cool milestone Friday at the IAPP by cresting over the 25,000 mark for U.S. members. Amazing to think that when I started here at the IAPP in 2010, we had around 6,500 members worldwide! It's been amazing to see such growth. State laws like the CCPA will continue to drive that upward momentum, I'm sure. 

P.S.: Go Pats!