Online privacy

Right now, Congress is considering a new federal privacy law, but nearly all of the proposals on the table have ignored the crucial issue of forced-arbitration clauses in consumer contracts. Companies use these clauses to prevent customers from suing them, often leaving no practical options for consumers whose rights have been violated.  Arbitration clauses are especially harmful when it comes to the Internet, because almost everything we do online involves a contract.

A Q&A with Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons.

Several of the draft bills related to privacy in the 116th Congress present concrete signs of an emerging shift in the underlying model for privacy regulation in the current discussion, from one based on consumer choice to another focused on business behavior in handling data. This paper focuses on this key element of the taxonomy—how proposals reflect this shifting paradigm and how the change affects other aspects of privacy protection.

In a tail of not one but two affairs and emails between the philandering parties has come a victory for data privacy, a federal appeals court has ruled that “previously opened and delivered emails” stored 'in a web-based email client' are protected 'electronic storage' for purposes of the Stored Communications Act.

Members of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations sharply rebuked Equifax and Marriott for failing to protect people’s personal data and prevent two of the largest security breaches in US history, putting hundreds of millions at risk. Democrats and Republicans alike said Equifax, a credit-reporting bureau, and Marriott, a hotel chain, each had failed to implement basic defenses against sophisticated hackers -- and that Equifax repeatedly did not patch known security holes or store key data in a way that was hidden from digital malefactors.

30 years on, the web has been "hijacked by crooks" who could destroy it, world wide web creator Tim Berners-Lee said. It's morphed into a platform where disinformation spreads like a contagion, hate foments and personal privacy has been relinquished to the highest bidder looking to make a quick buck. Now, the 63-year-old said, he's working to fix the online world he helped create, and launched two major efforts in Nov to turn the web around. The first is the Contract for the Web, which he says will make the web more trustworthy and less susceptible to some of today's problems.

The Federal Trade Commission is seeking comment on proposed amendments to two rules that protect the privacy and security of customer information held by financial institutions. In separate notices to be published in the Federal Register shortly, the FTC is seeking comment on proposed changes to the Safeguards Rule and the Privacy Rule under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. The Safeguards Rule, which went into effect in 2003, requires a financial institution to develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive information security program.

A Q&A Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidentional nomination.

Cellphone numbers have become a primary way for tech companies like Facebook to uniquely identify users and secure accounts, in some ways becoming a proxy for a national ID. That over-reliance on cellphone numbers ironically makes them a less effective and secure authentication method. And the more valuable the phone number becomes as an identifier, the less willing people will be to share it for communication.