The facts
Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 690 on Wednesday, stripping the private right of action from the pen‑register and trap‑and‑trace provision of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA). The law takes effect Jan. 1 and applies retroactively to claims filed within the past two years. Newsom said the measure “addresses the vexatious use of CIPA lawsuits and demand letters to extract settlement money from small businesses.” CIPA allows statutory penalties of $5,000 per violation, and lawyers have used the provision to file thousands of lawsuits and demand letters. Duane Morris partner J. Colin Knisely noted that class‑action claims can quickly reach “tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.” Fisher Phillips estimates more than 4,700 lawsuits have been filed since 2022, about two‑thirds of which invoked the pen‑register provision. The bill was narrowed from an earlier draft that would have exempted businesses showing a “commercial business purpose.” Consumer Attorneys of California, initially opposed, later praised the final version as a “right balance” in a September 24 letter. Plaintiffs’ firm Swigart Law Group’s founder Josh Swigart said the change won’t hurt our business because the firm also brings claims under other statutes.
Our take
Let’s be crystal‑clear: for years a cadre of ambulance‑chasing lawyers turned an antiquated phone‑tap statute into a digital shakedown. They didn’t need to prove any data was stolen - just that a tracking pixel intercepted metadata, and the $5,000 per‑violation penalty turned tiny sites into cash‑cows. Forbes and the Los Angeles Times paid millions to settle, and the litigation machine kept humming. Newsom’s SB 690 is a surgical strike that plugs the pen‑register hole, but it’s a band‑aid on a wound that’s still oozing. The original bill would have let businesses defend themselves if their tracking served a “commercial business purpose,” essentially acknowledging that almost every site tracks users. That language was stripped, leaving a narrow fix that only stops one specific claim. The very group that once fought the bill, Consumer Attorneys of California, now applauds it - proof that the legal‑industry applause meter is calibrated to profit, not principle. Josh Swigart, whose firm built a “significant portion” of its practice on these suits, says he’s “not too worried,” because the lawyers have already shifted to other statutes. As Fisher Phillips partner Usama Kahf warned, When you plug one hole, the water finds another. Newsom’s message to the Senate called the old regime “vexatious,” yet his own promise to “find a fair balance” next year sounds like a polite way of saying, We’ll patch the next leak when it shows up. In short, the governor has stopped one leak, but the pipe is still rusted, the pressure is still high, and the plumbers are already sharpening their wrenches for the next burst. **Fuck** the illusion of a clean fix; the litigation swamp is still very much alive.
