Senate Bill Would Have Consumers Opt In For Telco Information Sharing

Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) introduced legislation last Monday that would require the nation’s telecommunications companies to obtain a customer’s written permission before they could share their personal information with third parties for marketing and other purposes.

Telcos are currently permitted to share some of their customer’s personal information under a 1999 rule the Federal Communications Commission is considering revising. With its review in the early stages and the agency still receiving public comments on any possible change, the FCC has not indicated when the task will be completed or if it will lead to a change in its rules.

Wellstone’s bill, S-1928, would tighten some of the privacy provisions both in the FCC’s rules and the current version of the Federal Communications Act, by requiring consumers to opt in for their personal information to be shared with third parties, including a service provider’s subsidiaries and affiliates.

That information includes the customer’s name, address, telephone number, type of service, the technical configuration of those services, how and when they are used and billing data.

The Direct Marketing Association is “examining the bill, the existing FCC rule and provisions of the Federal Communications Act to see exactly what it would do to our members,” Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president, government affairs, said.

Cerasale added that “we are not certain how that information is used today by our members.”

Wellstone cited the concerns of 39 state attorneys general and a number of consumer groups that had previously filed statements with the FCC. These parties are anxious that the FCC might ease its information sharing rules and that “an opt-out approach would put the unfair burden on consumers to protect their own personal information,” Wellstone said as he introduced the bill.

The 39 attorneys general contend that telcos, which currently do not share data with competitors, could share customer information with outside firms “for the purpose of jointly marketing products and services unrelated to the customer’s current service selection, and even unrelated to telecommunication services entirely.”

At the same time, consumer and privacy groups argue that opt in would “ensure that consumers are given some effective means of control over the use of [their] personal information held by others.”

According to Wellstone, consumers should decide “what personal information and to whom it will be shared” beforehand.

He introduced the measure just two weeks after cash-strapped Qwest Communications, Helena, MT, said it was dropping a plan that would have allowed its numerous divisions to share