Tech lobby head urges privacy standards to avert divergent rules

A state court has ruled that the identity of anonymous Internet users must be protected unless a company can prove it's been harmed. (Dreamstime/TNS)

The president of a trade group that represents Alphabet Inc’s Google, Microsoft Corp and other tech companies urged faster development of national privacy norms to avoid divergent state rules. 

The Wednesday comments by Dean Garfield of the Information Technology Industry Council came less than two weeks after California passed a sweeping privacy law, a mention of which prompted him to sigh audibly.