California's Privacy Protection Agency "issued a record fine earlier this month to Tractor Supply," according to an EFF Deeplinks blog post — for "apparently ducking its responsibilities under the California Consumer Privacy Act." Under that law, companies are required to respect California customers' and job applicants' rights to know, delete, and correct information that businesses collect about them, and to opt-out of some types of sharing and use. The law also requires companies to give notice of these rights, along with other information, to customers, job applicants, and others. The CPPA said that Tractor Supply failed several of these requirements. This is the first time the agency has enforced this data privacy law to protect job applicants... Tractor Supply, which has 2,500 stores in 49 states, will pay for their actions to the tune of $1,350,000 — the largest fine the agency has issued to date. Specifically, the agency said, Tractor Supply violated the law by: - Failing to maintain a privacy policy that notified consumers of their rights; - Failing to notify California job applicants of their privacy rights and how to exercise them; - Failing to provide consumers with an effective mechanism to opt-out of the selling and sharing of their personal information, including through opt-out preference signals such as Global Privacy Control; and - Disclosing personal information to other companies without entering into contracts that contain privacy protections. In addition to the fine, the company also must take an inventory of its digital properties and tracking technologies and will have to certify its compliance with the California privacy law for the next four years. The agency's web site says it "continues to actively enforce California's cutting-edge privacy laws." It's recently issued decisions (and fines) against American Honda Motor Company and clothing retailer Todd Snyder. Other recent actions include: Securing a settlement agreement requiring data broker Background Alert — which promoted its ability to dig up "scary" amounts of information about people — to shut down or pay a steep fine. Launching the bipartisan Consortium of Privacy Regulators to collaborate with states across the country to implement and enforce privacy laws nationwide. Partnering with the data protection authorities in Korea, France, and the United Kingdom to share information and advance privacy protections for Californians. The agency has secured more than half a dozen successful enforcement actions against unregistered data brokers following an investigative sweep launched late last year to assess compliance with the Delete Act.

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Cindy Cohn, who has led the Electronic Frontier Foundation as Executive Director for the past decade and has been with the organization for over 25 years, will step down by mid-2026. The digital rights group is launching a search for her successor. From a press release: "It's been the honor of my life to help EFF grow and become the strong, effective organization it is today, but it's time to make space for new leadership. I also want to get back into the fight for civil liberties more directly than I can as the executive director of a thriving 125-person organization," Cohn said. "I'm incredibly proud of all that we've built and accomplished. One of our former interns once called EFF the joyful warriors for internet freedom and I have always loved that characterization." "I know EFF's lawyers, activists and technologists will continue standing up for freedom, justice and innovation whether we're fighting trolls, bullies, corporate oligarchs, clueless legislators or outright dictators," she added. [...] Cohn said she made the decision to step down more than a year ago, and later informed EFF's Board of Directors and executive staff. The Board of Directors has assembled a search committee, which in turn has engaged leadership advisory firm Russell Reynolds Associates to conduct a search for EFF's new executive director. Inquiries about the search can be directed to EFF@russellreynolds.com. The search committee hopes to hire someone next spring, with Cohn planning to remain at EFF for a transition period through early summer.

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