Push for Internet Privacy Rules Moves to Statehouses

So the abdication of common sense by Congress is now to be fixed by the adoption of common sense by the states, most of which are controlled by antediluvian troglodytes? Well, choose where you live carefully.

The problem is that these debates and centered on commerce and the minutiae of technological jnfrastructure. The debate should really about the fact that these companies are violating a BASIC HUMAN RIGHT. As long as people understand that, there will be heck to pay.

Nothing about me without me. Simple as that.

Not just online privacy; the push for ALL consumer protection is moving to the statehouses. FTC will limit itself to hardcore fraud with demonstrable consumer injury. Anything else will be up to the states: legislatures and Attorneys General. That's the new normal for at least the next 4 years.

My late mother made small contributions to a well-known charitable organization. After she died, I made a one-time contribution in her memory. I paid by check. Only my name was on the check. I did not include a return address. I am now being harangued by this organization daily BY PHONE on a home LAN line that is unpublished and is only know to a few family members and friends. It used my money to buy my personal information and probably that of others instead of using it for its charitable purposes. I am writing a letter to the CEO and advising him of the vulgarity of the organizations methodology among other things.

A day after searching the internet for cooking classes in Denver for a friend, I received e-mails offering cooking classes in Manhattan where I live.
Senate Republicans voted to allow more corporate spying. Why? That is
NOT a rhetorical question.
Don't we have a right to privacy? I'm outraged. Next Congress will allow the post-office to open our mail.

There is no constitutional right of privacy against non-governmental actors. That's arguably because no entity in the 1790's could foreseeably be as powerful or dangerous as government. Corporations, the very few that there existed, were creations of a state, chartered with limited powers & existence, subject to oversight.

Many attempts have been made over the last 2 centuries to extend civil rights & constitutional rights in general to corporations -- guess how that's worked out.

And now, thanks to our faux Originalists on the Big Court attempting, to borrow from Bill Maher, to discern what old white slave owners would have done, we're back to everyone's basic constitutional right to discriminate against everyone else for personal alleged religious grounds, especially if wedding cakes, bathrooms, or national origin are involved.

We're told to keep certain information private. Yet at the same time ISPs, credit card companies, health insurance companies, banks, etc., feel perfectly free to sell that information for pennies to advertisers and scam artists. We have a difficult time getting mistakes on our credit information or our credit cards corrected while our identities can be stolen in a second because of holes in security. We have to beg to get our health records. Our lives can be ruined by this yet the federal government wants to roll back privacy rules to make it easier to sell our information because why? It enables companies to target us more effectively in terms of milking us for our money? Thank you no.

My SSN, marital status, health records, school records, arrest records where there was no conviction, etc., are no one's business but mine. We are being asked to trust too many people with information that is not sufficiently secured that can be abused. Strengthening our privacy laws so that they protect us would probably result in a safer internet over all. My SSN should not be used for anything other than government requirements. And no one but my employer or bank or a health care provider should be allowed to request it.

This goes right back to the early days -- the "assumption" that the right to monetize our personal data, & to advertise to us, directly & covertly, & then to exploit us politically -- equally evil Zuckerberg & Mercers -- trumps our rights to privacy.

Why is the first principle not that our right to privacy in the internet analogy to our private homes, analogous to our now rather quaint 4th amendment rights to privacy, trumps anyone's right to collect data on what we do, let alone to monetize that data & advertise stuff back at us?

Could they put inward-facing neon ads up against all of our windows? Or always on TVs, like in North Korea, or in Orwell's 1984?

Who decided their right trumps ours? Could it be that club that George Carlin talked about? The one that none of us is in? But the Repubs are building out while no one's looking, as usual?

The masses want "internet privacy" but can't stop posting what they had for dinner last night, the best places to walk a dog, countless wedding, birthday and vacation photos. People freely post more personal information about themselves anyway.. I don't understand what internet privacy is or what it would look like. Face facts- If it's on your computer somebody can find it.. and no amount of regulation is going to change that now.

I'm confounded by complaints about hacking, identity theft and credit card fraud and the government's policies that contribute to it. The U.S. Code permits states to sell our personal DMV information to all kinds of people (how do you think AARP knows when you turn 50). It's how you get junk mail re funeral plots and arrangements, bank credit card ads, etc., some of which we have to burn or shred.

I remember back in the mid-90's when the issue of PCI compliance (a method to make consumers feel secure when buying something online, but has NO effect in reality) came up for discussion among internet merchants. Coincidentally, the question came up about companies wanting to track our viewing and buying habits in order to better serve up ads. Most of us thought we should have to OPT IN vs. out. We lost.

Also, the government is prohibited from collecting information on what we buy and from whom, where we bank, travel to, hotels we use, etc. but PRIVATE companies are allowed to do that as much as they want. They actually assign every person from birth (now) a unique 16 digit number and when the government needs that information, they can just go to those entities. Jeffery Deaver's book "The Broken Window" shows the horror story that can arise from that practice.

So this is consistent with dismantling privacy laws put in place to protect us. I guess they think we will become numbed to it, but please, be outraged and complain until they put our protection first.

This is the real danger folks. The government isn't spying on you unless you gave them a reason. Private companies already have a reason. They want your money and they will stop at nothing to get it. That includes violating your privacy. And don't forget, your information isn't safe with them. Even if they don't sell it, private companies get hacked way more often than government agencies.

"Such a right, which European consumers already have, has long been the goal of privacy advocates." If Europeans already have this protection how can companies claim, with a straight face, that the provisions are onerous? In the global economy will they decline to do business outside of the US? The fact is, pretty soon all, all regulations will have to be coordinated globally because the internet has no borders. Companies should also note that I find their mining for my personal information just as onerous as those regulations they wish to gut. If I can't vote this Congress out I will vote with my wallet.

This transfer of power to the states is disconcerting. It may work well for the people who live in states who have a reasonable, balanced legislative power, but too many of the states, by virtue of gerrymandering, are no longer concerned with people power, but political power, and have guaranteed they will STAY in power. I would rather the control remained in the Federal government, with some consideration that we have been allowing too many companies to get too big. Get the internet companies under FCC regulation, and bring back enforcement of our anti-trust laws. Money is NOT government. The well being of its citizens is what the founding fathers envisioned.

One could hardly expect any less from a Republican Party operating under a shadow of its association with Russian hackers, and its support of a president who would stop at nothing for the chance to a profit off of other's lives.

Geesh. Does Congress ever do anything that benefits regular citizens anymore?

While the states are at it maybe they can also work on breaking up the ISP monopolies. Maybe ones that would offer more privacy.

Not only is this a violation of our constitutional right to privacy, but it will also affect cybersecurity according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/five-ways-cybersecurity-will-suffe...

The RNC and Trump's overwhelming and blatant hypocrisy never ceases to amaze me .

e.g. As they run around like Chicken Little crying and screaming about the mythical political ' Deep State ' that only exists within their deluded imaginations , alt facts and fake news .... they push to strip us of what little remaining privacy we still have in order to further the Corporate Deep State that watches our every move

Gotta love RNC hypocrisy . If it benefits the corporate world its a good thing . But if it benefits the comment man ... its bad

The article fails to mention any efforts by New York and California to preserve Internet privacy.
There's a great opportunity, given the population and economic clout of both states, to pass legislation in the states preserving protections important to residents' of progressive states. Not only Internet privacy but environmental preservation (clean air, water, fuel emission standards, etc.)

This story is about states taking the iniative on privacy regulations. Yet every use of the word "Washington" refers to the District of Columbia. News flash! Washington is a state, sweeties.
You do this all the time. As a proud Washingtonian, I'm feeling the insult of your presumption that everyone knows that the important Washington is on the Potomac.

States should pass laws that prevent "push" technology to prevent companies form putting tracking cookies into OUR personal computers and phones.

Opt-in would preserve OUR privacy - Opt out does not.

They should prohibit lengthy "legaleze" online documents invalid. Quite simple and would go a long ways in protecting personal privacy.

The internet should enhance OUR lives and communication - not take them over.

Interesting that Republicans' interest in privacy focuses on privatized profits (and socialized loses), privatized democracy (0.1% Citizens United, dark untraceable political money, privatized for-profit healthcare, prisons, and education while stripping women of personal privacy for their uterus, stripping minorities and the poor of the right to vote, stripping consumers of computer data collection privacy and blindly strip-searching Americans at airports instead of having respect for the privacy of the average American.

But when Greed Over People and Greed Over Privacy are your guiding principles, this is the kind of Republican hypocrisy and greedy privatized policy America will get from the Princes of Profitable Darkness.

Disgraceful Republicanism at is finest.