Democrats Part with GOP on Network Neutrality, Online Privacy

Like the GOP platform adopted last week during the party’s convention in Tampa, the Democrats’ plan pledges to take steps to shore up the nation’s cyberdefenses, to protect intellectual property, and to resist international attempts to impose new regulations on the Internet. But unlike the GOP plan, the Democratic platform again endorsed the idea of network neutrality, saying, “President Obama is strongly committed to protecting an open Internet that fosters investment, innovation, creativity, consumer choice, and free speech, unfettered by censorship or undue violations of privacy.”

Another area where the parties depart is on privacy. The Democratic platform backs Obama’s call for a consumer “Privacy Bill of Rights” and to offer consumers a chance to opt-out of Internet tracking. The administration’s privacy bill of rights, unveiled in February, calls on companies to do more to protect personal data by, for example, telling consumers about what data is being collected and how it is used. The administration called on Congress to codify its privacy proposals into legislation but the Democratic platform is silent on the issue. The GOP platform discusses the need to protect individual liberty from government intrusion. However, the Republican platform does not mention the need to enhance consumer privacy. The Democratic platform touted President Obama’s proposal to promote access to wireless broadband services. It notes that the administration has pledged to ensure that 98 percent of the country has access to wireless broadband service and is “finding new ways to free up wireless spectrum.”