#263: A Tech Update from the West Coast

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2020

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

California has often been among the most active states in passing new legislation to regulate the tech industry. These policies can potentially impact not just Californian consumers and companies, but those across the United States. Cathy Gellis, a lawyer in the Bay area, joins the show to discuss the latest developments in the west coast affecting privacy, the sharing economy, and free speech.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the tech policy podcast. I'm Ashken Kazarian. On today's show, we're going to have a tech update from the West Coast. Joining me is Kathy Gallis, lawyer who does her private practice in the Bay Area. Kathy, thank you for returning to a show. Thanks for having me.
0:21.2	Kathy, so there's a lot of things going on in the tech policy world.
0:24.6	In 2020, is definitely going to be a lot of fun.
0:27.7	If by fun, you mean stress and debates and a lot of just things going wrong.
0:35.4	That's just my prediction.
0:36.6	That sounds like a fair definition of fun.
0:38.7	What would you say are the main areas that right now, especially in California,
0:44.4	the state that loves to lead on a lot of policy issues,
0:49.1	are tech policy lawyers focused on?
0:53.7	Well, coming out of the state, one of the problems we have is AB5, which was a rule passed,
1:02.3	it's essentially a labor law, ostensibly because there were some objections to Uber
1:08.3	drivers and such being deemed independent contractors. There may be some
1:13.4	externalities and negative consequences arising from that relationship, but when the state stepped
1:19.4	into fix it, they created a number of other problems. AB5 has the effect of eliminating an
1:26.3	awful lot of freelance work, a lot of independent contractor
1:29.5	relationships, and unless they are in industries that are specifically exempted from that bill,
1:35.9	there's a pretty profound chilling effect on a lot of labor relationships.
1:41.0	And although this is somewhat a broader issue than just a tech policy issue, a number of them end up touching on things that affect tech policy or free speech, because, for instance, one of the industries that's taken the hit is freelance journalists.
1:55.6	We're all of a sudden journalists who are supporting themselves with a West Coast-based publications are now losing their
2:02.4	income because the publications are either putting ceilings on how many articles that they can write
2:09.0	for them, and the ceilings are impractically low. And I think these are state-driven in some of the
2:15.3	language in the bill. Or they're just not using freelance journalists at all
	...

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