> Each state can choose to be as restrictive as they like in their laws, and each startup can chose to invest in compliance on a wide scale or in the narrow scale as they'd like.

There's a special hell that exists where one state mandates records must be held for at least seven years and another mandates deletion at five. When the two states border one another and you may not have home addresses, how do you determine how to comply for a given user?

You're absolutely right, in every way, that tech companies have brought this regulatory backlash on themselves. Yet, it might still be worth considering the potential costs.

Pass a federal law that allows any American to choose the state jurisdiction they want their account managed under at sign up. Corporations can choose to incorporate in Delaware without any real presence, consumers should be able to pick and choose jurisdictions as well.

I wonder if California could just permit cases to be filed in it's courts regardless of residence or the locality of the disputed action so long as the defendant has a presence there.

In the bill:

1798.145. (a) The obligations imposed on businesses by this title shall not restrict a business’s ability to: (1) Comply with federal, state, or local laws.

Now I wonder what sort of dance would occur if, in your example, both states' laws had such a clause.

Is this a hypo or a real example?

As far as I know it's a hypothetical, but it is very much the kind of thing that could happen. Regulations don't always align across political borders, which means there's the possibility there being no way to comply with both.

This is what you call putting the cart before the horse.

I was just thinking of it as a good reason to encourage harmonization of regulation.