Lawmakers Reignite Battle for Federal Privacy Law

Committee leaders in both the House and Senate are poised to introduce an online privacy bill, with key lawmakers releasing a bipartisan draft Friday. From a report: The U.S. has lagged behind the E.U. and China in establishing national privacy rules for online platforms, but this bipartisan effort shows signs of life even as the looming midterms mark the unofficial end of legislating. House Energy & Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ), ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) on Friday unveiled a discussion draft of their American Data Privacy and Protection Act. The bill would require companies to minimize the data they collect, ban targeted advertising to children under 17 years old and allow people to sue companies for violations under certain circumstances.

Congress will save us!

[Mononymous]

The final legislation is going to mandate specific technologies. It's going to shelter certain companies from liability.
It's going to be "series of tubes"-level clueless.

Re:

[WoodstockJeff]

Or it will be so broad that it doesn't survive the first court challenge.

Everything done by most people has some "marketability" aspect to it. What that aspect is changes as the rules change. Are we willing to pay for people to provide us with zero marketability? Not likely. Just visiting a page is marketable to SOMEONE.

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[ZombieCatInABox]

Or it will be so broad that it doesn't survive the first court challenge.

And even if it does, the Supreme Court will simply overturn the decision a few decades later when it's convinient...

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[John.Banister]

And, it will be used to provide equal protection for corporate "persons." Corporate entities under 17 years old need special protection! They can be easily influenced, and will often make campaign contributions without thinking through all the consequences.

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[Gravis Zero]

Guess who didn't read the article? It's you!

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[Canberra1]

A right to purge all personal internet information will never happen, other than public information and public records (newspaper articles, convictions, openly published). Want: All the urls I ever visited, my unique hardware ID;s and CPU serial numbers etc, purchase history etc purged. And my photos not published by me. Or diminished to a point in law, that such is inadmissible. Maybe anything older than 5 years. to to keep things 30 years - that is what a blackmailer dreams of. It is sure getting harder t

How about us OVER 18yrs?

[cayenne8]

How about protecting the adults in the room too?

Trying to drag the US into the 21st centuiry?

[gweihir]

On privacy that Is? Naaa, will never happen. Too many people get rich on being indecent assholes that do not care about the privacy of others (!) one bit and in the US, money trumps everything.

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[muh_freeze_peach]

Of course money trumps everything, our entire GLOBAL socioeconomic system relies on money. The pursuit of money is what keeps the damned lights on. If privacy focus were financially attractive, you would see privacy focused products all over the place...oh wait.

Really?

[oldgraybeard]

"and China" funny

Really ambitious

[bradley13]

task the Federal Trade Commission with studying the feasibility of creating a way for consumers to opt out

Wow, so ambitious /s

Thank heavens they are going to save us...

[TomGreenhaw]

... just like they stopped those auto extended warranty phone calls and bulk email spam.

Pre-election grandstanding

[Otis B. Dilroy III]

Which die before the end of the current legislative session.
"We really tried, we really did, but we just ran out of time."