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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: 2) by Lester on Thursday June 13 2019, @07:53AM (2 children)
USA citizens don't like regulations, they suspect of government and think that it should step aside and let citizens regulate by themselves and only interfere in the worst cases. Europe citizens like regulations, they suspect of stronger or richer citizens (or companies) and think that government has to protect them by regulations from abuses from 500Lb gorillas. In Europe there is a regulation tradition. They try to anticipate problems and regulate it in advance or, at least, as soon as they detect abuses. In USA there is the tradition of the Far West: let people occupy territory with no laws. So the expansion will be fast, they will occupy territory as soon as possible and as much as possible, and let's not regulate until problems can't be ignored.
But in this case there are another factors.
Most IT companies and internet services are supplied by American companies, and those services are sold around the world. They have a huge income from USA, but they have more income from foreign countries. That implies that USA government doesn't want to hinder those companies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @02:04PM (1 child)
The truth is, you should always be suspicious of those who have power. In the past, that basically was the government. Today, big corporations have almost the same, and in some cases even more power as governments. But unlike the government, the corporations are not controlled at all by the citizens. That's why today, you should be especially suspicious of the big corporations. And the only ones powerful enough to keep the corporations under control are the governments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @06:39PM
"And the only ones powerful enough to keep the corporations under control are the governments."
but they won't. not even in the EU. they will simply bless certain big corps and they will work together to screw the little guy, since that is the business model for both already. it's just a merger with window dressing, IOW.