How Washington is throwing away its shot at protecting your privacy

[Commentary] When Congress killed Federal Communications Commission rules that would stop internet providers from selling your browsing history to advertisers, supporters of that move told upset internet users to cheer up. Now, they all said, we could finally protect your privacy everywhere online! Instead of having rules that constrained only internet providers while letting sites and apps have fun with your data, we’d get our shot to develop a comprehensive privacy framework for all these companies. Two months later, something interesting has happened: A new bill by House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).

Blackburn’s BROWSER Act of 2017—as in, “Balancing the Rights of Web Surfers Equally and Responsibly”—would apply an opt-in standard to both providers and sites. And many of the people who had so much to say about online privacy in March have nothing to say about this bill… which suggests it will fare as well as other attempts to write new privacy laws. You’d think this bill would warrant a comment by the trade groups that had supported developing a uniform privacy standard—or the internet providers that had pledged in January to operate by an opt-in standard. You would be wrong. Spokespeople for the 21st Century Privacy Coalition, NCTA, CTA, the Chamber, and Comcast all said they had yet to take a stance on the bill, which has drawn four Republican co-sponsors to date. CTIA did not respond to queries but has yet to post anything about Blackburn’s proposal either.