TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Sacha Haworth, Executive Director, Tech Oversight California
DATE: Saturday, August 1, 2026
RE: Where to Watch for Big Tech’s Fingerprints at End of California’s Legislative Session
Ahead of the final sprint of the 2026 legislative session, which begins Monday, Tech Oversight California is calling on policymakers, the media, and the public to be on alert as Big Tech ramps up spending to fend off efforts to rein in its monopolistic, profit-at-all-costs business models.
Last year, Big Tech spent millions lobbying California lawmakers in the final months of the legislative session and is poised to exceed that spending this year. Its influence operation in Sacramento has already spent more than $8 million in the first half of the year, according to lobbying filings covering the second quarter of the year reported on Friday:
- CalChamber: $2.2 million ($500k increase from Q1; $3.8 million year-to-date; CalChamber lobbies on behalf of the tech industry in addition to other big business interests)
- OpenAI: $1.2 million ($1 million increase from Q1; $1.3 million year-to-date)
- Meta: $993k (a massive increase from spending just $11k in Q1, and nearly double their Q2 figure last year, which was $519k; $1 million year-to-date)
- Google: $545k (nearly doubling $284k in Q1; $829k year-to-date)
- Technet: $389k (spiking from $110k from Q1; $500k year-to-date)
- Amazon: $368k (up from $147k in Q1; $515k year-to-date)
- Chamber of Progress: $221k (up from $88k in Q1, and more than double their Q2 figure in 2025: $105k; $310k year-to-date)
- American Innovative Network: $126k ($223k year-to-date)
- Computer & Communications Industry Association: $30k ($60k year-to-date)
Meanwhile, Californians across the state are clamoring for solutions to problems Big Tech has made worse: monopoly power driving up the cost of living, AI-powered surveillance tracking workers and harvesting personal data, platforms engineered to addict our kids, and data centers straining the grid and draining water supplies with no accountability. In these final weeks, lawmakers have the chance to send smart solutions to these problems to Gov. Newsom’s desk.
Tech Oversight California’s end of session priorities are:
Competition, Affordability & Jobs
- AB 1776 (Aguiar-Curry) – COMPETE Act
- AB 2545 (Schiavo) – AI Deployment & Workforce Displacement Assessment
- AB 2564 (Ward) – Surveillance pricing
- SB 947 (McNerney) – No Robo Bosses
Competition, affordability, and jobs are top of mind for Californians – and Big Tech is a major driver of the pain. This slate takes it on from several directions: reining in the “robo-bosses” that let algorithms discipline and fire workers, cracking down on surveillance pricing that uses people’s data to charge them more, and requiring companies to weigh AI’s toll on the workforce before they deploy it. At the center is a landmark opportunity – the COMPETE Act, updating a century-old state antitrust law whose loopholes Big Tech exploits to entrench its dominance, raise prices, and squeeze workers. Corporate giants including Big Tech have launched a lobbying war to kill the bill that threatens their entrenched dominance, and the California Chamber of Commerce named the COMPETE Act its number one kill target for the year. Over the summer, CalChamber doubled down, announcing a seven-figure advertising blitz to oppose AB 1776 – on top of more than $6 million industry groups already spent lobbying against the bill. But workers, community advocates, and consumer protection champions are teaming up to expose that campaign, lower costs for California families, and restack the deck for workers and families instead of tech CEOs.
Privacy & Surveillance
- AB 1883 (Bryan) – Workplace surveillance
- AB 1159 (Addis) – Student Personal Information
- AB 1542 (Ward) – Prohibiting selling sensitive personal information
- SB 923 (Becker) – Clarification of right to delete
Every day, more and more of what Californians do gets tracked, scored, and sold. Employers are deploying AI to monitor and rank workers in real time. Data brokers are trading in people’s most sensitive personal information. Platforms are harvesting students’ data in the classroom. This slate draws the line – reining in workplace surveillance, protecting student information, barring the sale of sensitive personal data, and strengthening every Californian’s right to delete what companies hold on them. The industry that profits from that data is fighting to keep collecting it. But Californians are pushing back: during summer recess, Tech Oversight California launched a billboard campaign confronting the explosion of AI-powered workplace surveillance and highlighting the Legislature’s chance to stop it by passing AB 1883.
Youth Digital Safety
- AB 2 (Lowenthal) – Injuries to children: civil penalties
- AB 1709 (Lowenthal) – Banning addictive design features
- AB 2246 (Wicks) – CA Kids Code 2.0
Big Tech has spent years fighting youth safety measures that would protect our kids online, even as evidence against the industry piles up. In March, a California jury found Meta and Google liable for designing their platforms to addict a young user – the first verdict of its kind, and a sign of what’s coming as more than 40 state attorneys general and thousands of families press their own claims. This session, lawmakers can act on that evidence: holding platforms accountable for the harm they do to kids and modernizing California’s Kids Code with a package of bills that works together put our kids’ wellbeing ahead of engagement metrics and Big Tech profits.
Data Center Accountability
- AB 1577 (Bauer-Kahan) – Data centers: reporting
- AB 2619 (Papan) – Water resources: data centers
- SB 886 (Padilla) – California Technology Innovation and Ratepayer Protection Act
Big Tech’s data centers are multiplying across California, and they run on staggering amounts of electricity and water – with the bills landing on ratepayers and the strain landing on communities that never signed up for them. These bills would finally bring some transparency: requiring data centers to report their energy use, accounting for their demands on the state’s water, and shielding ratepayers from subsidizing Big Tech’s AI buildout. Industry groups including TechNet, the California Chamber of Commerce, the Bay Area Council, and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group are lined up against even these basic disclosures. But lawmakers have the chance to give Californians the facts Big Tech would rather keep hidden.
Tech Oversight California is a Sacramento-based advocacy group dedicated to reinforcing the ongoing fight to build a better internet in California and beyond by holding Big Tech platforms accountable and moving the state forward as a national and global role model for strong tech regulation.