[JURIST] A US District Court judge has struck down a part of California's financial privacy law that places restrictions on banks' ability to sell their customers' private information to their associates. The provision was struck down because a federal law, the Fair Credit Reporting Act [text], already restricted their ability to sell information to affiliates. The infringing section of the 2003 California Financial Information Privacy Act [text] required that companies offer customers the right to opt-out of sharing any private information. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is currently considering whether to appeal Judge Morrison C. England Jr.'s ruling to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. AP has more.