Apparently White House Privacy Bill Does Not Undercut FCC

According to public advocacy sources familiar with the proposed privacy legislation expected to be released by the White House on Feb 27, the Administration has dropped a provision that would have allowed companies to bypass Federal Communications Commission privacy rules on customer information, broadband, phone and video through a self-regulatory code of conduct overseen by the Federal Trade Commission.

Apparently, the bill still weakens privacy protections, essentially by emphasizing multistakeholder codes of conduct, which those multistakeholders, including cable operators and marketers, have supported. One source said the bill would establish industry review boards, weaken the FTC's unfairness authority by providing a safe harbor for companies complying with the codes, and gives the FTC only a 90-day window to approve or deny codes. The same sources had suggested that the White House might be rethinking that part of its bill, given the Democratic pushback and that the President Obama has supported a Title II approach to Federal Communications Commission open Internet rules that would move some privacy oversight from the FTC to the FCC.