Online privacy

The Mobile Marketing Association and WARC's new joint "State of the Industry" report found that while mobile marketing budgets boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, connsumer privacy concerns remain a significant barrier to growth. The top-line finding of the report is that two out of three marketers boosted their mobile marketing budgets over the past year, at least partly due to the acceleration of ecommerce following the pandemic. And while marketers appear to be more optimistic about almost every potential barrier to further mobile marketing budget growth, consumers' concern over their p

If Congress passes comprehensive privacy legislation, it will need to delegate a federal agency to enforce the law and conduct rulemaking. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has used its general consumer protection authority to bring enforcement actions against companies violating user privacy, and has therefore been considered the de facto privacy agency. However, three bills have challenged this assumption and would create a new agency to enforce privacy law rather than relying on the FTC. This report compares the new agencies in three legislative proposals to one another and to the FTC.

The US government has built robust programs to track terrorists and criminals through warrantless access to commercial data. Many vendors now provide global location information from mobile phones to intelligence, military and law-enforcement organizations.

Around the world, governments are moving simultaneously to limit the power of tech companies with an urgency and breadth that no single industry had experienced before. Their motivation varies.

In a series of letters, six US senators questioned eight digital advertising exchanges about the possible sale of Americans’ personal information to foreign-owned companies. The senators are seeking information about the sharing of Americans’ data through “real time bidding” – the auction process used to place many targeted digital advertisements.

T-Mobile says it will use its customers’ web browsing and app usage data to sell targeted ads unless those customers opt out.

Rep Suzan DelBene (D-WA) introduced the Information Transparency and Personal Data Control Act, legislation that would create a national data privacy standard to protect our most personal information and bring our laws into the 21st Century. The bill protects personal information including data relating to financial, health, genetic, biometric, geolocation, sexual orientation, citizenship and immigration status, Social Security Numbers, and religious beliefs. It also keeps information about children under 13 years of age safe.

The Federal Communications Commission proposes to add a new system of records, FCC/WCB–4, Consumer Challenge Process, to its inventory of records systems subject to the Privacy Act of 1974. The Consumer Challenge Process system of records contains personally identifiable information (PII) submitted by individuals, or third parties on behalf of individuals, needed to establish eligibility to challenge the accuracy of Participants’ submissions, provide sufficient information for Participants to respond to a challenge, and create accurate maps of Participant coverage or eligible locations.

A Federal Communications Commission notice published in the Federal Register announced the reestablishment of four computer matching programs the FCC and Universal Service Administrative Company will conduct with Missouri’s Department of Social Services, North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services, Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services, and Tennessee’s Department of Human Services.  The purpose of these particular matching programs is to verify Lifeline eligibility by establishing that applicants or subscribers in Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee are

We’ve set the foreign policy priorities for the Biden administration by asking a few simple questions: What will our foreign policy mean for American workers and their families? What do we need to do around the world to make us stronger here at home? And what do we need to do at home to make us stronger in the world?