What a Difference a Week Makes: A New Framework for Protecting Privacy

Was it just last week when we shared lots of gloom and doom about the state of US privacy? Who could have predicted that so much would change so quickly. On February 23, the White House released Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World: A Framework for Protecting Privacy and Promoting Innovation in the Global Digital Economy which includes a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. The Administration also announced that coalition of Internet giants including Google has agreed to support a do-not-track button to be embedded in most Web browsers—a move that the industry had been resisting for more than a year.