The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held hearings Wednesday on Internet privacy legislation.
The committee, chaired by Sen. Earnest F. Hollings (D-SC), clearly felt there was a need for legislation, Reuters reported, and focused discussions on what form that legislation should take.
Hollings and former committee head Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) both said they would introduce Internet privacy bills they had submitted separately last year, according to the report. The bills differed in whether companies should be required to get explicit permission (an opt in) or may use the data unless consumers tell them not to (opt out), said the report.
Paul Misener, vice president of global public policy at Amazon.com, testified against the need for legislation. “Companies like Amazon are already providing privacy to consumers,” Misener told DIRECT Newsline in an interview. “There is no inherent need for legislation.”
The Amazon privacy policy, which can be accessed from every page on Amazon, provides access, choice, notice and security, Misener said he told the committee. These are the privacy principles recommended by the Federal Trade Commission.
In his testimony, Marc Rotenberg, executive director of Electronic Privacy Information Center, said, “the first requirement of a good privacy law is that organizations are open about their data collection practices and accountable to those whose information they gather. This is not simply a matter of posting a notice or a privacy policy on a Web site.”
“The most effective way to ensure openness and accountability is to give the individual the right to inspect the data collected, ensure its accuracy and understand it use,” Rotenberg said.
If a federal law is passed, Misener said, it should apply to both offline and online commerce. The offline laws that exist today affect health care and financial services, he said.
“But more than 99% of last year’s retail sales occurred offline,” Misener added. “So a law about online privacy would only touch a tiny percentage of consumer transactions and the only people who would receive any benefits of those laws are those on the fortunate side of the digital divide–those who are fortunate enough to have computers and be online,” he added.
EPIC’s Rotenberg addressed this issue in his testimony. “Online commerce simply is different,” he told the Senate committee. “Cookies, Web bugs, online profiling and Spyware are all uniquely associated with the architecture of the interactive digital environment.
“Techniques are available to profile individual preferences, oftentimes without the knowledge or consent of the profiled person. It is because of the very specific capability of the online environment to collect and record personal information that legislation is appropriate,” Rotenberg said.
“The bottom line is consumers should have meaningful choice,” Amazon’s Misener said. Sometimes it’s opt in, sometimes it’s opt out
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