Every year, privacy legislation would be introduced in Congress (sometimes it would be among the first legislative proposals submitted in a given Congress) and every year it would be rejected. The Federal Trade Commission, prior to 2002, had submitted several reports to Congress on the impact of the Internet and ecommerce on privacy, and every time the FTC has stayed largely faithful to the tenant of self-regulation.
But in time, visions of paradise transformed into the reality of trouble and abuse. Growing pains of the new online economy were tolerated as industry, consumer groups, and governments continued to negotiated resolutions to privacy blunders. [News] But, when it comes to children, industry blunders were swiftly greeted with the hammer coming down. [See also e.g. CDA, COPA, CIPA seeking to protect children from harmful content]
The first reformation came in 1996 with the Center for Media Education Report documenting the behavior of online services with children’s information. The documented behavior was atrocious. The online services might set up games where the children could earn points towards winning prizes. Play a few games and win a few points. Provide the salaries of your parents along with information about whom they work for and win lots of points.
This led the Federal Trade Commission 1998 report Privacy Online: A Report to Congress. This Report found that while 89% of sites surveyed collected information from children, only 24% had posted privacy policies, and only 1% required prior parental consent. These reports led to the unusual break from the mantra for self regulation and the swift passage of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, the first online privacy law of the Internet era.
As the Clinton Administration's time came to a close, the faithful continued to abandon "self regulation." The last FTC Privacy Report of the Clinton era continued the call for reformation, concluding that the time for self regulation had passed. The FTC recommended to Congress that privacy legislation responsive to industry transgressions would be appropriate.
Ongoing consumer concerns regarding privacy online and the limited success of self-regulation efforts to date make it time for government to act to protect consumers' privacy on the Internet. Accordingly, the Commission recommends that Congress enact legislation to ensure adequate protection of consumer privacy online.
[Privacy Report 2000 p. 36]
Reminder: Unlike the private sector where there is no federal legislation generally mandating privacy policies, the public sector plays under different rules. [See Privacy Act] Government entities have explicit legal obligations concerning privacy, the collection of information, and the dissemination of that information. There are specific obligations that apply to government online resources. [See Sec. 626, Exec. Memo M-00-13, Exec. Memo M-99-18, ECPA] Oh, one area of privacy protection for the private sector involves telephone carriers. [See CPNI]
The risk to privacy resulting from the collection of personally identifiable information is not new. The collection of personal information and the tracking of customer preferences has occurred for many years in many settings. For example, when a consumer calls a toll free number, or when a business uses caller ID technology, the consumer’s telephone number is revealed to the business. Additionally, buying habits are recorded in a host of contexts, such as when consumers place catalog orders, make purchases utilizing credit cards, fill prescriptions, and join grocery store customer loyalty clubs. Thus, the privacy concerns that stem from the collection of personally identifiable information are not new and are not caused by the Internet. However, the facility with which the Internet and other new communication technologies enable the collection of such information to occur, along with the rapid growth of e-commerce, has prompted enhanced scrutiny of this privacy issue. Some have expressed concerns that:
the automated collection and distribution of personal information is forcing Americans to live in a virtual fishbowl. The increased accessibility, on the Internet, of personal details about our lives will erode other American liberties: people will think twice before consulting a doctor, joining a political organization, or sending e-mail, when the information winds up in an online database.
- Know the Rules Use the Tools, Privacy in the Digital Age: A Resource for Internet Users, US Senate Judiciary Committee, p. 2 (n.d.) |
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