While CISPA’s progress past the US House of Representatives was drawing plenty of heat from privacy activists last week, an altogether different internet bill that aims to enhance internet user’s privacy was facing down tough opposition of its own.

If passed into law, AB1291, otherwise known as the “Right to Know” act, would give California consumers the right to know how web companies are using the data that they – subconsciously or otherwise – share with them. Companies would be forced to reveal all data that they have collected on people in the first place, provide an explanation of how it’s used, AND tell consumers which companies and organizations their data has been shared with. In other words, the Right to Know act is pretty much a dream come true for civil libertarians and privacy activists alike.

Only trouble is, pretty much every heavyweight on the tech scene that you could care to mention has come out in opposition of the bill, launching a quiet but purposeful campaign to kill the proposed measure before it gains any momentum.

The Silicon Valley newspaper Mercury News reported earlier this week how a coalition of 15 major tech firms and industry groups, including TechAmerica, Facebook and an unholy alliance of Google and Microsoft, co-signed a letter calling on assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal to drop the bill she authored. The companies claim that such a bill would open them up to an avalanche of ‘privacy requests’ and hundreds of possible lawsuits.

Do We Deserve A “Right To Know”?

Proponents of the Right to Know act claim that the bill is necessary because most consumers simply have no idea just how much of their private lives they’re sharing. They argue that consumers can only make an educated decision on whether to share their data or not, if they know exactly how much information they’re giving out.

As we’ve seen in recent weeks, it’s possible to tell an awful lot about an individual simply from monitoring their web activity. Facebook for example, is a veritable gold mine of information. Just last month, researchers showed how they were able to successfully guess a person’s sexual orientation with an 88% accuracy rate, simply by mining public data on their profiles. Meanwhile, third-party advertisers are constantly buying up and selling off the data they collect from websites, social media and mobile phones, which often includes things like locations, personal email addresses and phone numbers.

In their letter addressed to California’s Assembly Judiciary Committee, which is considering the bill, the tech firms clearly outlined their stance:

“While we understand that the bill is sponsored by several consumer organizations, it is unworkable, rests on mistaken assumptions about how the Internet works, and would impose costly and unrealistic mandates on California’s technology sector with minimal benefit to state residents,” they claim, adding that the bill is “over-broad.”

But the American Civil Liberties Union, which is co-sponsoring the bill, hit out at the companies, accusing them of trying to prevent people knowing the true scale of information amassed on them:

“A lot of companies don’t want consumers to know what’s happening to their personal information. Companies are collecting and sharing this information with third parties in ways the people might not realize and in ways they might not want.”