DLC | New Dem Daily | June 5, 2000
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=389&kaid=107&subid=126The Federal Trade Commission recently sent a report to Congress on Internet privacy, noting that the industry has not made enough progress towards self-regulation in this area, and asking lawmakers for authority to issue sweeping regulations. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) quickly responded with a floor speech announcing his intention to introduce legislation that would provide consumers basic protections for Internet privacy while avoiding heavy-handed federal regulation of this critical and rapidly changing industry.
Fortunately, Sen. Kerry's proposed bill offers a third way on Internet privacy: establishing basic privacy protections that empower consumers to make their own decisions about use of information, while setting goals for the adoption of self-regulation and encouraging the development of "software solutions" among Internet companies.
He would require Web sites to disclose their privacy policies "clearly and conspicuously," and in plain language rather than legal jargon. Aside from informing consumers, this disclosure requirement would give the Federal Trade Commission a legal "hook" for taking action against sites that violate their own policies to engage in unfair or deceptive uses of information. Beyond this minimum protection, Kerry has indicated he wants to set goals for industry on how to protect privacy without micromanaging the means industires use to develop to achieve these goals. Kerry has outlined four principles he believes every Web site should follow: providing notice of privacy policies; giving consumers choice in how much information to disclose; supplying access for consumers to information about them; and ensuring security against improper use of personal information by third parties, including hackers.
Consistent with PPI's proposals in their recent report How to Can Spam, Senator Kerry's legislation would also pass restrictions to protect Americans from unsolicited commercial e-mail. The bottom line on Internet privacy is that the federal government should establish minimum protections, set goals for the adoption of robust and comprehensive self-regulatory programs (such as BBB Online) by the industry, and then monitor the ability of industry to self-regulate within those parameters. The right of consumers to control the trade-offs between privacy and easy use of the Internet should be a paramount consideration.
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