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Privacy Your Rights Online

Sen. McCain Introduces Privacy Bill 15

Posted by jamie from the let's-take-a-look dept.
Manjit writes: "An article on Yahoo! reports that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has introduced an Internet Privacy Bill which would require Web sites to disclose how personal information will be used. I'm not really much for government regulation but I think that the privacy problems will not be resolved without laws forcing businesses to safeguard personal data. My favorite quote from the article: 'The bill would enable consumers to sue Web sites who violate the bill's agreements to sue for up to $22,000.' This would be great! The best way to get businesses to follow the rules is to hit their bottom line if they don't."

The actual bill text isn't available online yet (I think it'll show up here), so I'd be remiss to start evaluating it. I also don't see anything yet at EPIC.

Keep in mind that McCain is the same senator who in January 1999 introduced a bill to withhold e-rate funds from schools and libraries who did not install censorware. That bill's stalled, but he introduced an amendment last month with the same idea. The government giveth with one hand and taketh away with t'other.
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Sen. McCain Introduces Privacy Bill More

Sen. McCain Introduces Privacy Bill

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  • Okay, so you can sue web sites that violate this bill's agreements up to 22,000 USD. Implicitly, this seems like a great idea, and Manjit (the person who submitted the news clip) says that hitting companies' bottom line is a good way to enforce privacy. However (obviously), this bill would only have jurisdiction in the United States. If a company is worried about its bottom line, what would prevent them from simply locating their servers outside the United States? Is it more cost-effective to have a compliant privacy policy and monitor it and applicable laws or to just move the servers out of the jurisdiction?

    Rajiv Varma
  • And what's to stop Napster from doing this once they (eventually) lose their court battle?

  • Yeah, everything the government touches turns to shit. Just take computers as an example. They got a hold of perfectly good stand alone computers and invented this really shitty idea of putting them on a global network, called it the somethingnet, or was it the intersomething. Anyway, it's turned out to be a real disaster.

  • Assuming that the bill does go through and does do exactly what it says it will do I am still left with one question--so what? No one reads those long statements, I know I certainly won't spend my time on the web reading borring privacy statements, and therefore, they could easily contain elastic clauses that would permitt them to give your information to others.

    What it boils down to is that if you agree to a site's privacy policy then they can do what you agreed to let them do-just like anyother contract.

    The only thing that I see as keeping companies in line is the ability to sue, but not just on an individual level. The threat of a Class action suit from litterally tens of thousands of users should be enough to keep just about everyone in line.
  • E-Tailers are mostly American companies. The UK is always been a mirror of American laws concerning most facets of online business. This law is a good thing. Probably the first good law the schmucks in Washington have come up with since the moratorium on net taxes. But if anyone cares to remember, short-term memory types out there, the UK and France followed our lead with making e-signatures legal, a major turning point and the nail in the coffin for the USPS.

  • My biggest fear from this bill is how it might effect the little guys.

    For instance, I have a web site myself. On it I have a webboard and a mailing list signup, each of these collect user information such as the user's name and email address. Also, I have several shockwave games here and we log connections to these as well. All this stuff is offered free to use by anyone on the web.

    But, I also offer my services as a freelance shockwave developer and advertise this on my site.

    I worry that as a result of my offering commercial services in addition to the free ones, I may be considered commercial according to this law and could be sued if someone visiting my site misuses information found there which I wasn't even responsible for posting.

    So services, I set up so that others could voice their opinions or recieve information about new games I created might have to be removed from my site just because I can not afford the amounts of money required to improve my security to what the bill defines as a 'satisfactory' level.

    People need to remember that information is information regardless of how it is stored. Whether it is added to a database when you fill out a form or is included in a comment you post to Slashdot because you typed it in by hand, it is still information which could be misused.

    I only hope that our freedom to speak our minds on the Internet will not be too badly hurt by this bill.

  • They'd be well off dropping the 'Internet' part of this concept and go w/ all business w/in the US. So any business in the US is liable to any of it's customers, foreign or domestic, if they are unfaithful in their privacy statement.
  • After the lobbyists get to this bill, they'll flip the parity bit and BUSINESSES will have the right to sue CONSUMERS if they provide false information on online registration forms. (See also: electronic signatures; UCITA.)

    I really, really wish I could post this as a joke, but I've seen too many bills that looked good initially, and during initial debates, become horrific monsters when someone made a one word change. E.g., a bill that requires landlords to provide minimum standards as a "floor" (e.g., basic habitability like water, sewer, heat, electricity) became a monster when someone changed that word to "ceiling" - making all leases that guaranteed anything nicer than a hovel unenforceable!

    (And sadly, Colorado really did need to have a state law that guaranteed apartments would have running water and flush toilets. An "oversight" intended to protect remote mountain cabins was being exploited by some urban slumlords.)

    In either case, this will definitely be a bill to watch. Esp. since Congress has already passed several last-second easter-egg amendments during the past few years.
  • McCain, after his (sadly) failed presidential run, is arguably the senator with the highest profile in the whole nation, and probably has the ability to pull this off, especially since it is sponsored by three other senators, two Ds and an R.

    Thing is, how applicable is this going to remain? All web sites hosted in the US, probably. Arguably all .com/org/net, which the US retains some control over. And those are the vast majority, but there are other domains out there. I wonder if they can make it stick at the consumer end, ie if the /customer/ is American, the law applies.
    --
  • #include &ltIANAL.h&gt

    Everyone always brings up the (valid) point that the Internet spans international borders. However, US law applies to any company or individual doing business in the US. Just because a company co-locates it's servers in Switzerland does not give them any protection from US law. If their money goes through any US bank, you can sue them and put a lein against their US accounts - so even having a Swiss bank account isn't going to save their bacon.
    "The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'

  • It's true that a business will react by the bottom line.

    The only was is to have introduce statutory damages and attorney fees. That is, even if you can show no damages, that it is assumed that there is $X in damages.

    This type of damages are needed in privacy act legislation,credit reporting legislation, and SPAM legilation.

    Otherwise, they will say, well, we know it's illegal, but they can't prove it was our false report that caused damages.

  • Obviously self-regulation isn't working since TRUSTe [truste.org] can't even ensure that sites like RealNetworks and GoHIP.com aren't violating your privacy.

    According to them, it's OK if sites violate their privacy policy and collect personal information as long as they don't use the web to do it...

    --

  • They don't get it. (Score:3)

    by Vladinator ( 29743 ) on Thursday July 27, 2000 @05:36AM (#901001) Homepage Journal
    I think this mainly shows how politicians just don't get it still. They think of the net in terms of it only being American. They are dead wrong and foolish, as usual. More importantly, our government has what I like to call the Anti-Midas touch - what ever they put thier hands on, turns to shit. This will be no different.

  • Trusting Politicians + (Score:3)

    by Nehemiah S. ( 69069 ) on Thursday July 27, 2000 @10:31AM (#901002)
    Reading Jamie's link [loc.gov], I can't help ROFLMAO. Only in Washington would a man be able to introduce a bill with the designation "S.97" that goes by the Short Title of "Children's Internet Protection Act".*

    I trust McCain et. al in exactly the same way I trust a hungry wild dog: I won't shoot him as long as he's keeping the rats away, but when he starts offering to babysit I get uncomfortable. There are some things I just don't need his help with.

    Although I like the idea of being able to sue people who misuse my personal information, I wouldn't be surprised if the title of this bill is misleading. McCain is good enough to get away with fooling most of the people most of the time. For instance, the much publicized Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act [loc.gov], which the general populace accepted as panacea, does absolutely nothing to reform campaign finance except allow larger PAC contributions and allow employees to opt out of labor union contributions they don't agree with. And does anyone -really- believe children are protected by censorship?

    Calling this bill a Privacy Bill is falling into the exact same trap. It will not create any true standards of privacy. Instead, it will create the illusion of privacy, where non-US web sites can still use your information however they want and US web sites need only say "We sell your info to the highest bidder(s)" in blinking size 3 Tacoma font at the bottom of the page. Beneath the TrustE logo.

    Rev Neh

    *Yes, I know the real [slashdot.org] "long" titleof S.97.

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