Privacy Rules

The burgeoning News Corp. phone-hacking scandal has shined a spotlight on the issue of privacy in recent days. For cable operators, programmers and advertisers, though, the issue has long been under the klieg lights, thanks to an inescapable recognition that we - and our kids - are living in the online space these days.

Privacy legislation has been kicking around Washington for almost a decade, generally caught in the ideological gap between Democrats' desire for government involvement and Republicans' defense of free-market forces. That was before broadband became the buzzword on every policymaker's lips and revelations piled up about how cutting-edge technology was slicing into privacy rights. There has never been as much activity on the privacy policy front in the nation's capital as there is today. A raft of bills have been introduced in the House and Senate, with more on the way; the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are conducting investigations; and a pair of advisory reports are due from the FTC and the Obama administration, by way of the Commerce Department. All of these efforts seek to provide citizens with basic protections from hackers, thieves and unwanted marketers. The subject of security is also under serious study and scrutiny by corporations, think tanks and legislators. Service providers, online advertisers and marketers - whose digital sales tools peer ever deeper into consumers' lives by recording channel choices and keystrokes - have a lot at stake in how the government chooses to bulk up online privacy protections.