Senate Democrats Call on FTC To Fix Data Privacy 'Crisis' (theverge.com) 33
Senate Democrats are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to write new rules to protect consumer data privacy in a new letter to the agency authored on Monday. From a report: The letter, led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and signed by eight other Democratic senators, was sent to FTC Chair Lina Khan Monday, calling on the agency to "begin a rulemaking process" on privacy. Specifically, the senators are requesting that the FTC pen new rules addressing privacy, civil rights, and the collection of consumer data. "Consumer privacy has become a consumer crisis," the lawmakers wrote. "Tech companies have routinely broken their promises to consumers and neglected their legal obligations, only to receive wrist-slap punishments after long delay, providing little relief to consumers, and with minimal deterrent effect."
Well, that's bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Congress is supposed to write the rules. The FTC is supposed to administer them
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Yes indeed, the 111th congress was even a bigger disaster than this one
Re:Well, that's bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, if it has the force of law it should get voted on by the legislature, the people we elected. That's their job and that's what's in the Constitution. They don't want to vote on important issues because it may be used against them at election time.
Unelected bureaucrats on the other hand should have as little power as possible since they have no accountability. In addition too many of the unelected are payback jobs for getting POTUS elected, industry insiders, professional bureaucrats and academics with no real world experience. Too many also live inside the beltway and not near the people or places they regulate.
Perhaps (Score:2)
But in Britain, the unelected quangos and Lords tend to be much better defenders of democracy than Parliament, so it doesn't always work that elected officials are better.
(Indeed, the US has very little faith in those they elect, placing near-total power into the hands of the unelected.)
That'll fix it (Score:3)
Like, say, religion fixed masturbation and premarital sex.
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Other items can be even more hilarious. Facebook suddenl
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We live in a stratified society in America. You're talking about companies in a two-tier system, but it applies to people as well. If I get drunk and go on a rampage downtown and beat a few people up, I'm probably going away for a nice long time. If a millionaire does the same thing they might get a drunk tank stay and a little fine and community service to make them look apologetic, though that community service will likely just be them writing another check for a library or park or something.
Why most p
Republicans have a hard-on for data (Score:2, Offtopic)
It almost exceeds that of the Democrats.
Enforcement (Score:2)
Tech companies have routinely broken their promises to consumers and neglected their legal obligations, only to receive wrist-slap punishments after long delay
So there are already rules that companies are breaking and nothing happens? So we need more rules? How about we start enforcing the rules that are already there?
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Perhaps there need to be rules that are actually enforceable, or that actually have significant penalties. I'm not sure that's what's being asked for, but sometimes the old rules really need to be replaced.
Rules (Score:2)
Maybe they should be updated, but it sounds like enforcing existing rules takes a long time and usually end up going nowhere. That's an enforcement issue, not a rules issue. I would say the structural issues in the FTC causing that to happen need to be fixed before new rules come down.
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It can easily be a rules issue if the rules are so written that it's difficult to impossible to get evidence. But, yeah, there's definitely a lot of evidence that the FTC tends to go lightly on the larger players.
Re: Enforcement (Score:2)
Unenforceable rules can't be enforced. Otherwise Microsoft would have lost its appeal and would have been broken up since 1998.
We'd all be better off if it had, it wasn't because tech-ignorant appeals judges felt the law didn't apply to software.
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I mean, if I'm teh FaceBooks or teh Googles, and I'm making US$100m a year breaking the law and you fine me US$5m for breaking the law, well, that's just cost of doing business.
On the other hand, if the fine started after you were notified of the violation, and the fine were say 1% of your yearly gross income for every day until rectified, you'd pay attention pretty quickly. Either that or you could lose 30% of your yearly
Isn't it too big to fail, at this point? (Score:2)
The EU seemingly never went as far down the rabbit hole with this as the US did (for whatever reasons, but personal privacy was always more important in Europe than in the US, even pre-Big-Data), yet GDPR et al were still extremely disruptive. Since most of the 800lb datamining gorillas are in the US, it didn't affect their profits as deeply as it might have, but it did reduce revenues for a lot of websites and app developers around the world.
It's now hard to estimate just how much of the US economy, and th
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Probably because they remembered the Nazis, and were closer to the Soviets. Also because they were less "No government, the market will fix everything". And one reason for that was because less of the area in their countries was rural. If you live out in a rural area the government wants you to pay, but doesn't supply nearly as many services. (Partially because it's more expensive to supply services when the recipients are widely dispersed.)
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California just passed the CCPA which is very similar to the GDPR. The world didn't implode.
Seems like the Republicans will like this one. (Score:2)
Not surprised (Score:1)
After all, the government doesn't want private entities to have more information than they do.
Re: Not surprised (Score:2)
Outsourcing intelligence gathering isn't new. The tech companies are assets, with either backdoors or data sharing agreements. That's why there's no privacy. The USG doesn't fear big tech's data, big tech IS the USG and has been for a very long time.
Whose fault is this "crisis"? (Score:2)
The government has let the current situation evolve into what it is now because the government never has been particularly concerned with the privacy of citizens' personal information. Instead it has been obsessed with its own access to all of that information, collecting and cataloging it under the pretext of protecting us from terrorists and bad guys. This seems to be a non-partisan problem; officials and bureaucrats of all political stripes seem to enjoy the idea of knowing every tiny fact about all of
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You sure it's about THEM making money? Or more likely their dirty laundry getting caught up in all this data collection.
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because the government never has been particularly concerned with the privacy of citizens' personal information.
Zuckerborg asked the law maker "do you have any naked pictures of your wife...?" after checking his private data store.
Cue the redefinition... (Score:2)
Cue the redefinition of "exposing corruption", "making politically incorrect comments", and ... aw heck: "Free Speech", as "violating data privacy" in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
Step 1 (Score:2)
Repeal the Patriot Act.
No... go ahead. I'll wait.
Asking the FTC to do Congress's job? (Score:3)
Regulations - as in, the rules written by the FTC - are supposed to implement legislation. Shouldn't Congress first pass some legislation stating that people have a right to privacy, to ownership of their data, etc.? That's what the GDPR does, and it precisely provides a foundation for regulatory action.
If the FTC has no real basis for privacy rules, the direction of those rules will be up for sale to whichever interests can influence them - probably through revolving-door hiring. Also, those rules will be ephemeral, subject to change whenever the politics and interests shift.
Does the US Congress actually do anything useful?
Re: Asking the FTC to do Congress's job? (Score:2)
Both wings of Congress are paralysed unless a party has 60% or more of the votes in both Houses. The public are hostile to a functioning Congress.
One can argue about the honesty of politicians, but it's the public who choose who is there so it's the public's fault if they can't trust Congress.
Focus too specific, doesn't address real problem (Score:2)
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The Congress ought to make laws providing for real penalties for companies that leak my data.
They should also create a path for "canceling" an old identity and establishing a new one. Currently the easiest way to get a new SSN is to die and be resurrected. This (silly) identifier, if we must use it, should be like a credit card - if it's compromised, you cancel it and get a new one. All your info transfers over to the new one. If anyone tries to open an account or apply for benefits or work using the old one, the system gives it a big fat "Nuh-uh".
Go Qubes, or go naked. (Score:2)
Yeah, that's all we need (Score:1)
People who don't know a f*cking thing about computers, trying to tell us how to secure computers.
Talk to the CFO's and CEO's that aren't smart enough to invest in their infrastructure when we tell them, "We need, x, y, z, to secure the network and systems." only to be told "No, we don't need that"...then you take the risk when it DOES get breached (and it will).
Either invest in your infrastructure, or take the risk. Either way, you're writing a check.