*CALIFORNIA CONSUMER PRIVACY ACT OF 2018*

*California ballot measure would create a tough law on personal data privacy*.

The staging ground for one of the biggest regulatory fights facing the technology industry is far removed from Washington or Brussels, tucked into an alley next to a wine and cheese shop about 30 miles from the Silicon Valley.

A barely furnished real estate office in an upscale Oakland neighborhood is the headquarters for backers of a proposed California ballot measure that would provide consumers with increased privacy rights, including the ability to demand that companies not sell their personal data.

If the initiative, called the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, passes. privacy advocates say it will be one of the most meaningful checks in the United States on the growing power of Internet behemoths.

The proposed ballot measure is passion project of an unlikely trio : a real estate developer, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst and a financial industry executive.

They say they have no political aspirations : They're not techies and they aren't privacy zealots. instead, they say, they are like many internet consumers - dismayed by tech firms' handling of personal data.

''People want some basic rights,'' said Alistair Mactaggart, the 51 year old real estate developer, who has put in more than $2 million of his own money to get the measures off the ground.

''People are resentful but accepting, there isn't any sense of control about  their  data.''

The California measure has three major components:

It would give consumers the right to ask companies to disclose what data they have collected on them; the right to demand that they not sell the data or share it with parties for business purposes; and the right to sue or fine companies that violate the law.

Google, Facebook, major telecommunication companies and California's Chamber of Commerce have already come out against the initiative, saying it is flawed and a threat to the economic model supporting the Internet.

They've created an organization to fight the measure with a decidedly populist name: ''The committee to Protect California Jobs.''

Political consultants have told the initiative backers that they should prepare for the opposition campaign to spend $100 million. Steve Maviglo, a spokesman for the opposition, declined to put a number on the campaign spending, but acknowledged that there is a lot at stake.

''It's California,'' he said. ''It's expensive''.

The Honor and Serving of the latest Global Operational Research on Technology and Laws continues to Part 2. The World Students Society thanks author and researcher Daisuke Wakabayashi.