Anyone that thinks America isn't socialist needs to wake up and smell the roses.
If you've been living in a cave you HAVEN'T heard about Gmail from Google, which is a service that essentially provides people with 'free' access to an email account with a whopping GigaByte of storage. It's 'free' because Google will scan your email for non-personal info and then target advertising to you as a means of defraying storage costs/making a buck. Frankly, the whole notion is awesome. I hate advertising, but google has repeatedly shown that they make targeted advertising work; non-obtrusive and relative -- you can't ask for better.
(As an aside, I'll probably NEVER sign-up for an account. Third-party email solutions just don't float my boat... but if they did, I'd have no qualms about google scanning my email for non-personal, non-stored info).
Well... California has been doing a fine job of proving that we are indeed a socialist nation by wasting time enacting legislation to protect consumers from google.
Hey Sen. Figueroa, here's an idea: why not try protecting your constituents from the PHONE company, the gas company, or the power company These fine, state-sponsored monopolies that immediately SELL personal information to the likes of telemarketers, and hold people at gun-point through price-fixing are the REAL enemy to Americans. Nobody is holding a gun to the heads of anyone to force them to use Gmail, and because of capitalism in the 'email space' there's plenty of competition. Stop wasting time attacking Google to protect people who are too stupid to read...
Morons...