Salesforce's Marc Benioff calls for a national privacy law
Since June, when Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff authored a widely read opinion piece for Politico calling for a national privacy law for personal data -- a stance that runs counter to that of many tech vendors -- California passed data privacy legislation echoing the European Union's groundbreaking GDPR.
Benioff, who had earlier backed a more radical data privacy ballot measure that tech giants like Facebook opposed, threw his clout behind the California bill, even though that measure is not quite as stringent as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
Amid boom times for data and the lack of U.S. regulation making it easier for companies to consume and monetize customer data, Benioff put the giant San Francisco-based CRM software vendor at the vanguard of the U.S. data privacy movement.