Online privacy

Earlier in May, Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel sent letters to major phone companies asking for an update on their progress toward halting the sale of customers’ real-time location information. A series of press reports over the past year revealed that geolocation data collected by phone companies was being made available to hundreds of bounty hunters across the country. However, the FCC so far has not provided the public with any details, despite the ongoing risk to the safety and security of American consumers.

Can Congress prevent the disproportionate harm inflicted on marginalized communities from at times irresponsible commercial data practices? As our lives increasingly shift online, so, too, have methods of discrimination—using individual data profiles—and our laws have been slow to keep up.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), whose House Commerce Subcommittee is leading efforts to craft privacy legislation, raised the prospect of tackling concerns over competition and data protection at the same time. Asked about next steps on privacy legislation, Chairwoman Schakowsky said the question is where to limit the “scope” of a bill. “You can really get into a whole lot of things,” she said. “There’s talk about breaking up the big tech companies. Is that a part of this? Is that a separate [issue]?

Microsoft has unseated Google at the top of the 2019 Corporate Accountability Index. Telefónica outpaced Vodafone among telecommunications companies. Yet despite progress, most companies still leave users in the dark about key policies and practices affecting privacy and freedom of expression. A majority of companies improved and clarified policies affecting users’ privacy—a trend that appears to be driven by new data protection regulations in the EU and elsewhere. But even the leading companies fell short in key areas.

As expected, the Democratic leaders on the House Communications Subcommittee used the Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing to hammer FCC Chairman Ajit Pai over policies and actions with which they strongly disagree. In his opening statement, Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA) said Chairman Pai had yet to explain to Congress or the American people what it was doing about mobile carriers sharing real-time geolocation data. He also slammed the inaccurate and deeply flawed broadband deployment data, old and faulty business broadband data, and warned the FCC not to act on a USTelecom forb

Federal Communications Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks say that the FCC has not been forthcoming about its investigation into the sale of consumers' real-time cell phone location data by AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. It appears the investigation has not been prioritized by the agency. Around a year after the inquiry was opened, there have been no public updates, and the two commissioners said they have little knowledge on what's actually being investigated. "So far it appears that the FCC is more interested in protecting the privacy of its investigation than

When does a company become too big or too successful to exist? Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, argues that Facebook should be dismantled because “big” poses a risk to society. In my view — and that of most people who write about technology’s impact on society — what matters is not size but rather the rights and interests of consumers, and our accountability to the governments and legislators who oversee commerce and communications.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is hoping to get key committees on the same page when it comes to the tech industry and data privacy. He’s drafting a letter to leaders on Senate Banking and Senate Commerce committees to sort out jurisdictional questions related to the sector. “I’m going to have Sen. [Dianne] Feinstein and myself, we’re going to write a letter to the other committees of jurisdiction and see if we can come up with sort of a common approach to the issues,” he said. Sen Graham said the letter will likely be sent next week.

Sen Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said that Silicon Valley has been arrogant, with a "toxic undercurrent" to industry practices that "can't be ignored," -- and wouldn't be ignored by Washington. She suggested that Big Tech needed to lose the attitude and engage with policymakers "more directly and respectfully" rather than "ducking out on hearings when called to testify." She said the only thing Facebook has done right in the past year is to prove they can no longer self-regulate.