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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/opinion/sunday/privacy-congress-facebook-google.html
In the past year, Congress has been happy to drag tech C.E.O.s into hearings and question them about how they vacuum up and exploit personal information about their users. But so far those hearings haven't amounted to much more than talk. Lawmakers have yet to do their job and rewrite the law to ensure that such abuses don't continue.
Americans have been far too vulnerable for far too long when they venture online. Companies are free today to monitor Americans' behavior and collect information about them from across the web and the real world to do everything from sell them cars to influence their votes to set their life insurance rates — all usually without users' knowledge of the collection and manipulation taking place behind the scenes. It's taken more than a decade of shocking revelations — of data breaches and other privacy abuses — to get to this moment, when there finally seems to be enough momentum to pass a federal law. Congress is considering several pieces of legislation that would strengthen Americans' privacy rights, and alongside them, a few bills that would make it easier for tech companies to strip away what few privacy rights we now enjoy.
American lawmakers are late to the party. Europe has already set what amounts to a global privacy standard with its General Data Protection Regulation, which went into effect in 2018. G.D.P.R. establishes several privacy rights that do not exist in the United States — including a requirement for companies to inform users about their data practices and receive explicit permission before collecting any personal information. Although Americans cannot legally avail themselves of specific rights under G.D.P.R., the fact that the biggest global tech companies are complying everywhere with the new European rules means that the technocrats in Brussels are doing more for Americans' digital privacy rights than their own Congress.
The toughest privacy law in the United States today, is the California Consumer Privacy Act, which is set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2020. Just like G.D.P.R., it requires companies to take adequate security measures to protect data and also offers consumers the right to request access to the data that has been collected about them. Under the California law, consumers not only have a right to know whether their data is being sold or handed off to third parties, they also have a right to block that sale. And the opt-out can't be a false choice — Facebook and Google would not be able to refuse service just because a user didn't want their data sold.
[...] Where the Warner/Fischer bill looks to alleviate the harmful effects of data collection on consumers, Senator Josh Hawley's Do Not Track Act seeks to stop the problem much closer to the source, by creating a Do Not Track system administered by the Federal Trade Commission. Commercial websites would be required by law not to harvest unnecessary data from consumers who have Do Not Track turned on.
A similar idea appeared in a more comprehensive draft bill circulated last year by Senator Ron Wyden, but Mr. Wyden has yet to introduce that bill this session. Instead, like Mr. Warner, he seems to have turned his attention to downstream effects — for the time being, at least. This year, he is sponsoring a bill for algorithmic accountability, requiring the largest tech companies to test their artificial intelligence systems for biases, such as racial discrimination, and to fix those biases that are found.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Thursday June 13 2019, @04:19PM
I disagree with the third point, but it may be due to my internal cynic.
People that value privacy will have to buy politicians just to even the playfield. Unless there is some initiative to make lobbying forbidden, which is not likely.
Otherwise, I think it is a fantasy to believe that someone with the authority will wake up and impose restrictions on how personal data is monetized. It is a fantasy that lobbying from the social media and advertising firms will stop or become ineffective compared to the demands of the populace (companies will cry about jobs and profits--like *any* company about to get regulated), and it is a fantasy that there will be some sort of hero or heroes that arise, without lobbying burdens, with a purity of heart unseen within the crowd of purchased congress and senate members. It may become more political, even though privacy affects everyone.
It's even more of a fantasy that somehow this noble person or people in the legislative branch will be able to overcome the odds against unfunded white knights against many funded to actively oppose privacy laws, or at least speak no ill about the panopticonomy. It'd take regime change or a lack of funding.
The EU likely pulled off what they did because they are leery of American corporations, and by extension, the American government, having so much access to citizen data that the EU governments likely don't have full access to themselves. That lady in charge of the GPDR stuff really confused a lot of the executives of the various US based firms that she worked with. She acted subservient and understanding, offered them coffee when they visited, and then pulled out a sledgehammer when it came time to write the details within GPDR requirements. It took many US companies by surprise.
Whether the true intentions were for defending the privacy of the common citizen, or perhaps less altruistically in defense their national security (or both)... doesn't matter so much in that they couldn't be as easily bribed due to the levers of power not being connected to the EU governmental bodies.
That said, I agree with you 100% on the first two items. Privacy will become a luxury that only the rich can afford, and that only the richer can buy back what was once given away for free. It'll cost to remain private; data not handed out will be immensely valuable--sort of a mystique, and will drive more of a digital divide I am sure--the rich that keep control of their data and the non-rich that have to give it up in order to participate on the modern internet.
Unfortunately, just like everywhere else, on the Internet, freedom has rarely been free.