The FTC Must Be Empowered to Protect Our Privacy

Although consent orders sound good in theory, recent revelations about Facebook’s behavior have left consumers doubting that they work in practice. While consent orders remain an important tool in the Federal Trade Commission’s enforcement toolkit, the Commission lacks the resources to properly administer them. Further, even if consent orders were fully and consistently enforced, the FTC’s ex post facto enforcement can only address consumer privacy violations after they have occurred. These problems must be resolved through comprehensive federal privacy legislation that provides the Commission with both additional administrative support and ex ante rulemaking authority.

 So, what can be done? Here are a couple of things: (1) give the Commission sufficient funding and staffing to protect consumer privacy in the digital age; (2) give the Commission rulemaking authority to promulgate rules to prevent consumer privacy harms before they occur.