Online privacy

An Internet service provider can see every website that you choose to access. And with the scrapping of Obama-era privacy regulations in 2017, the US federal government has no rules against ISPs collecting and selling your information to marketers. But new tech fixes are plugging the privacy holes that the government won’t. The effort began in April, when Firefox browser maker Mozilla and content delivery network Cloudflare rolled out measures to block one of the easiest ways for ISPs to snoop.

Apple will pledge its support for federal privacy regulations during a Sept 26 Senate Commerce Committee hearing. Expect Apple’s Bud Tribble to underscore the difference between the hardware maker, which doesn’t need to make money from user data, with companies like Google, which have built their business model on it. Tribble, a longtime Apple employee who leads the company’s privacy engineering work, will "convey Apple’s support for comprehensive federal privacy legislation that reflects Apple’s long-held view that privacy is a fundamental human right" during the hearing. "We want your dev

Google’s top privacy staffer will defend the company’s business model at an upcoming Senate hearing, while backing the broad idea of new privacy rules. Google will face tough questions at the Sept 26 Senate Commerce Committee hearing on privacy, where chief privacy officer Keith Enright will appear alongside representatives from other tech companies as well as internet service providers. Enright said he plans to stand by the company’s ad-supported business model.

Reps Suzan DelBene (D-WA) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) are offering up the latest legislative effort to regulate online privacy, including by requiring websites and online services to get opt-in permission for collecting and/or sharing web browsing data and requiring privacy policies to be delivered in 'plain English.'  They have introduced The Information Transparency and Personal Data Control Act, which would also require disclosure if, and with whom, they share behavioral data, and why, as well as require third-party audits of privacy protections submitted to the Federal Trade Commission a

The White House's signal that it is working on a blueprint for a national privacy protection framework in the age of broadband and the Internet of Things has prompted some bipartisanship on Capitol Hill. A pair of Senate Commerce subcommittee leaders have written Commerce Sec Wilbur Ross to say that Congress should be included in any such effort. “To protect Americans from data misuse and establish certainty for businesses to create jobs, innovate, and compete domestically and abroad, a national privacy framework is essential,” the senators told Sec Ross.

Consumer privacy advocates are less than thrilled that Senate Commerce Committee leaders declined to invite them to an upcoming hearing on data privacy. 28 privacy groups wrote to Commerce Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-SD) and Ranking Member Bill Nelson (D-FL) that they "do not understand why the Committee has chosen to exclude the voice of consumers." They called on the senators to invite them or hold additional hearings with them.

Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) signed into law a state funding bill that will grant Attorney General Xavier Becerra $700,000 and five new staffers to help craft and implement the state’s sweeping new privacy law. AG Becerra has reportedly told Gov. Brown he expects to issue final rules under the law by June 2019, in advance of the measure taking effect on Jan. 1, 2020. The newly-minted funding law will help bolster the state’s effort to install what’s been touted as the strongest state-level online privacy safeguards in the country.

As the Senate Commerce Committee prepares to bring in tech and telecom officials for a hearing on consumer privacy, Chairman John Thune (R-SD) has suggested Congress should legislate. That would be welcome to many tech and telecom heavyweights wary of a patchwork of state privacy rules (like those recently passed in California) that could be more onerous to deal with than a single federal framework.

The Senate Commerce Committee is getting ready to host a much-anticipated hearing on consumer privacy—and consumer privacy groups don’t get a seat at the table. Instead, the Committee is seeking only the testimony of big tech and Internet access corporations: Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Charter Communications, Google, and Twitter. Some of these companies have spent heavily to oppose consumer privacy legislation and have never supported consumer privacy laws.

AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile US, and Sprint unveiled a system that would let them manage your logins across third-party websites and apps. The \system would verify each person's identity with "a multi-factor profile based around the user's personal mobile device," taking into account the user's phone number, account tenure, IP address, phone account type, and SIM card details. The system "combines the carriers' proprietary, network-based authentication capabilities with other methods to verify a user's identity," the carriers say.