Amazon, AT&T, Google push Congress to pass online privacy bill to preempt stronger California law
Amazon, AT&T, Google push Congress to pass online
privacy bill to preempt stronger California law
By Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY 5:17 p.m. ET Sept. 26, 2018
SAN FRANCISCO -- Major companies including Amazon,
AT&T, Apple and Google are lobbying Congress to craft legislation that
would preempt a first-of-its-kind California privacy law that grants sweeping
online protections to consumers.
Senior executives from these companies, plus Twitter and
Charter Communications, offered a show of industry support for a federal
privacy bill with weaker consumer protections during a Senate hearing
Wednesday.
Such a bill would block states like California from
enacting stronger privacy protections. The executives argued that a patchwork
of different state laws would make it tough for companies to operate and would
threaten innovation. The takeaway from news outlet Axios: "Tech companies
want privacy rules, but on their own terms."
The testimony on Capitol Hill came one day after the
Department of Commerce recommended new regulations on how companies handle
consumers' personal information that were similar to the ones being proposed by
the tech and telecom industries.
Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, warned the
industry push would not get bipartisan backing if it's designed simply to
supplant a progressive California law with a "non-progressive federal
law."
Consumer advocates, who objected to a Senate hearing without
anyone to represent consumers, echoed that sentiment, saying they will fight
for more stringent standards.
"The process today was flawed. It began by getting
the foxes to agree that the hen house should be protected," Nathan White,
senior legislative manager at advocacy group Access Now, said in a statement.
"Instead, Congress should examine the problem from the perspective of
those who are at risk of harm: the users."
Heavy scrutiny of data collection by lawmakers in the
wake of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal has resigned the tech and telecom
industries to some degree of regulation. Now Congress must weigh the concerns
of consumer privacy advocates, who are pushing for people to get more control
over how their personal information is collected and used, and the powerful
tech and telecom companies that mine that data.
"The question is no longer whether we need a federal
law to protect consumers’ privacy. The question is what shape that law should
take," John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota who heads the Senate
Commerce panel, said during Wednesday's hearing.
He says there is growing bipartisan agreement on the need
for legislation. His committee has convened a second meeting for early next
month to gauge consumer sentiment. California privacy activist Alastair
Mactaggart, a San Francisco real estate developer who spent millions of his own
money to pass the California privacy law, and Andrea Jelinek, the Austrian head
of enforcement for new privacy rules in the European Union, are scheduled to
testify.
At issue is California's new data privacy law, which will
hand consumers the right to control what companies know about them and what
they do with that information. It's the most restrictive law on the books in
the U.S. but does not go as far as new online privacy rules Europe enacted in
May.
The tech industry is pressing for weaker regulations than
in California or the European Union. Apple, which doesn't rely on advertising
sales for revenue, was the only company at the hearing to argue that the bar
for federal legislation should be set "high enough" to protect
consumers.
Earlier this week, Google proposed a business-friendly
framework for a federal privacy law. The Trump administration signaled its
approach to data privacy when in 2017 it scrapped Obama rules restricting
internet providers such as AT&T and Comcast from selling information about
consumers' online browsing habits.
Digital privacy groups say they will soon propose a plan
to protect consumers in the U.S.
"Data companies hope they will be able to use their
political clout to get Congress to pass a 'you can get out of protecting
privacy' law," said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for
Digital Democracy. "We must stop the bleeding of our personal information
flowing from our mobile phones, PCs and connected TVs."
According to the Pew Research Center, 9% of online
Americans believe they have "a lot of control" over the information
that is collected about them. Nearly three-quarters say it is very important to
them to be in control of who can obtain information about them. And two-thirds
of online Americans say current laws are not good enough.
The California law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in June has
brought tech and telecom companies to the negotiating table. The law, which takes
effect in January 2020, does not technically protect consumers in other states
but its passage has emboldened consumer advocates in other states to push for
aggressive restrictions on the collection and use of personal information.
Under the current version of the law, consumers will have
the right to know what personal information companies are collecting and why
and with which businesses it's being shared. They will also have the right to
direct companies to delete their information and not to sell it. The law also
restricts sharing or selling the data of children younger than 16. Consumers
who don't allow companies to sell their personal data must be given the same
level of service, but companies will be able to charge them higher fees.
Corporations including AT&T, Verizon, Facebook and
Google as well as privacy advocates are lobbying for changes to the law. State
lawmakers have said they expect to pass “cleanup bills” to fix issues with the
law before it takes effect.
James Steyer, founder of Common Sense Media and one of
the California bill's backers, says the tech industry can't be trusted to do
the right thing on its own.
"It's a desperate attempt to try to roll back what
we just achieved in California, which is landmark protections for consumers,
kids and families," Steyer said. "We understand that the landmark law
that we passed is not perfect, but it is a really, really strong start and we
have to be careful here not to allow the tech industry to take us
backwards."
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