116 lines
6 KiB
Markdown
116 lines
6 KiB
Markdown
# Goodwin Procter Analysis and Dylan Taylor Profile
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## The Goodwin Procter Publication
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Title: "California's Year-End Privacy Wave: What Businesses Need to Know"
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Published: December 2025
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Authors: Jacqueline Klosek, Omer Tene, Jonathan Ng, Lilla Lavanakul, Reema Moussa, Corey Berman
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Taylor cited this publication in his PRs, using the language: "per Goodwin Law's analysis, the law requires operating system providers to require users to provide age information as they set up their accounts."
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### Meta Is a Confirmed Goodwin Procter Client
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Per Legal 500 rankings, Meta provided a client testimonial for Goodwin. Chambers USA also lists Meta among Goodwin's major technology clients. The law firm whose analysis Taylor cited to justify the systemd birthDate PR represents the primary corporate beneficiary of OS-level age verification ($26.3M lobbying to shift burden from social media to OS providers).
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### Key Authors
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| Person | Role | Significance |
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|---|---|---|
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| **Omer Tene** | Partner, Boston | Former VP and Chief Knowledge Officer at IAPP. Now IAPP Senior Fellow. |
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| **Jacqueline Klosek** | Partner, New York | Author of 6 books on privacy. Quoted in Fortune (Mar 18, 2026) about age verification. |
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### Assessment
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The Goodwin publication is a standard client alert - law firms publish these routinely. No evidence of direct coordination between Goodwin and Taylor exists. The chain is worth noting, however:
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```
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Meta (confirmed Goodwin client, $26.3M lobbying)
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→ Goodwin Procter publishes analysis framing AB-1043 as mandatory for OS providers
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→ Taylor cites Goodwin analysis to justify systemd PR
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→ Boccassi (Microsoft) merges PR
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→ Poettering (Amutable) blocks revert
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```
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No lobbying registrations by Goodwin related to age verification were found ($0 in lobbying expenditures, 2024).
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Sources:
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- [Goodwin - California's Year-End Privacy Wave](https://www.goodwinlaw.com/en/insights/publications/2025/12/alerts-practices-dpc-californias-year-end-privacy-wave)
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- [Legal 500 - Goodwin Cyber Law](https://www.legal500.com/rankings/ranking/c-united-states/media-technology-and-telecoms/cyber-law-including-data-privacy-and-data-protection/50382-goodwin)
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- [Chambers USA - Goodwin Technology](https://chambers.com/department/goodwin-procter-llp-technology-usa-5:479:12703:1:3620)
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---
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## Dylan M. Taylor - Expanded Profile
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### Social Media Presence
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| Platform | Status |
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|---|---|
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| Twitter/X | No account found for @dylanmtaylor |
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| Mastodon/Fosstodon | No account found |
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| Reddit | No posts found |
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| Blog (dylanmtaylor.com) | Exists, but no posts about age verification |
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| LinkedIn | Not investigated (requires login) |
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Taylor has no public social media presence explaining his motivations for the coordinated three-project PR campaign.
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### Prior systemd Involvement
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PR #40954 was Taylor's first-ever contribution to systemd. He had no prior issues, PRs, comments, or contributions.
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He does have prior Arch Linux contributions:
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- archinstall PR #208 - PipeWire sound server option
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- archinstall PR #458 - pavucontrol to XFCE profile
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### Resume Timing
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Taylor's resume at `files.dylanmtaylor.com/dylan-resume.pdf` was compiled on March 18, 2026 - the same day the systemd PR was merged. This could indicate job-seeking activity concurrent with the PR submission.
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### Credit Genie - Investor Details
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| Investor | Amount |
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| **Khosla Ventures** (lead) | Part of $47.8M total |
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| **First Round Capital** | Part of $47.8M total |
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| **Tippet Ventures** | Part of $47.8M total |
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| **Fortress Investment Group** | Part of $47.8M total |
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| **Sutter Hill Ventures** | Part of $47.8M total |
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| **Gabriel Investments** | Part of $47.8M total |
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| **Protagonist** | Part of $47.8M total |
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First Round Capital also invested in Pantheon (David Strauss's company - Strauss is now Amutable CPO). This is the only documented shared investor between Taylor's employer and an Amutable founder's previous company. No evidence indicates this connection is meaningful.
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Khosla Ventures is listed among identity verification market vendors by Technavio but no direct portfolio investment in age verification companies (Yoti, Veriff, Jumio) was found.
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Vinod Khosla is a Democratic megadonor ($413K to Harris Action Fund, $1M to crypto PACs in 2024) but no connection to age verification legislation was found.
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### Aaron Rainbolt - Independent Actor
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Aaron Rainbolt (Ubuntu Community Council Member, Kicksecure/Whonix contributor) posted an age verification API proposal to debian-devel, Fedora, and Ubuntu mailing lists on March 1, 2026. His approach actually conflicts with Taylor's:
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| Feature | Taylor's Approach | Rainbolt's Approach |
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| **Data stored** | Raw birthDate (YYYY-MM-DD) | Age brackets only |
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| **Privacy** | Full date exposed | Privacy-preserving |
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| **Method** | systemd userdb JSON field | D-Bus API (org.freedesktop.AgeVerification1) |
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| **Storage** | Portable with user record | Root-owned non-world-readable file |
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No evidence of coordination between Taylor and Rainbolt exists. They appear to be independent actors responding to the same legislative stimulus.
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### Sam Bent's Assessment
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Sam Bent's investigation (sambent.com) concluded: "Nobody hired him to do this. He just read the law and started writing code."
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### What Remains Unknown
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- Personal motivation for the coordinated three-project campaign
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- Why no social media, blog posts, or public statements explaining his reasoning
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- Why the resume was compiled the same day the PR was merged
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- Whether anyone suggested he submit the PRs
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- His political donation history (FEC search returned no records for Durham, NC)
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Sources:
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- [Sam Bent - The Engineer Who Tried to Put Age Verification Into Linux](https://www.sambent.com/the-engineer-who-tried-to-put-age-verification-into-linux-5/)
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- [Aaron Rainbolt - Ubuntu mailing list](https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2026-March/043510.html)
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- [Aaron Rainbolt - Kicksecure Forums](https://forums.kicksecure.com/t/about-aaron-rainbolt/624)
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- [Credit Genie - Tracxn](https://tracxn.com/d/companies/credit-genie/__Nt7sylmPKKNOba2aDYbKpcdvc4cuYVQ1ndOIiTpTGfs)
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