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Tech Industry Pursues a Federal Privacy Law, on Its Own Terms (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In recent months, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft and others have aggressively lobbied officials in the Trump administration and elsewhere to start outlining a federal privacy law, according to administration officials and the companies. The law would have a dual purpose, they said: It would overrule the California law and instead put into place a kinder set of rules that would give the companies wide leeway over how personal digital information was handled. "We are committed to being part of the process and a constructive part of the process," said Dean Garfield, president of a leading tech industry lobbying group, the Information Technology Industry Council, which is working on proposals for the federal law. "The best way is to work toward developing our own blueprint." The efforts could set up a big fight with consumer and privacy groups, especially as companies like Facebook face scrutiny for mishandling users' personal data. Many of the internet companies depend on the collection and analysis of such data to help them target the online ads that generate the bulk of their revenue.
A law that will explicitly permit them to abuse/ignore peoples' privacy? Great...
guarding the hen house
They want to be retroactively immunized . By passing this law, prosecuting them for the crimes they know they're committing would be pointless, if not imposxsible.
That's called "consciousness of guilt".
One set of laws for them written for them, to benefit them. Another much more punitive set of laws for us, written by them, to punish us.
This is pretty clearly being felt on both sides of the red/blue natioalist/globalist divide now.
I am not a Trump supporter, but that doesn't stop me from recognizing more than a little truth in this:
https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/27/americas-crisis-is-three-tiered-justice/
A number of years back the computer industry tried pulling this stunt with UCITA. It provided a uniform license for software that in theory greatly simplified licensing.
http://newsbreaks.infotoday.co...
It sounded great in the soundbites the tech giants put out at the time. However, once you got into the details it quickly became apparent that the law that was completely tilted in their favor. For example it made it legal to remotely shut off users software in the event of a contract dispute.
This is effectively UCITA 2.0 and must be opposed just as strongly as UCITA was. Don't allow the tech giants sell out your privacy rights. UCITA was defeated, this too can be defeated.
I wonder if their long term goal is, to use NAFTA/CETA/TTIP to push this onto the EU too.
(CETA, contrary to popular opinion is NOT dead, but was officially passed. With a few alterations that were more sneaky changes of wording than anything else, which got snuck back in right after. And "thanks" to NAFTA, that means TTIP passed though, since Canada can be used as a proxy.)
Protect our business model, business is more important than people/privacy.
"We are committed to being part of the process and a constructive part of the process,"
That is your problem right there.
Remember "For the people, by the people?" That is on par with "Yes, I will pull out." and "The cheque is in the mail."
And as legal issue, as it is not enforced, just as much of a plot device as "The three laws of robotics."
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
This is effectively UCITA 2.0 and must be opposed just as strongly as UCITA was. Don't allow the tech giants sell out your privacy rights. UCITA was defeated, this too can be defeated.
Tech giants were much less lobbyist-savvy back then.
so no more hippa and data can black list people in gop healthcare plans.
>>It would overrule the California law...
Well CA seems to already have a good law in place, all the feds need to do is say "CA law is now the federal model for law" and problem solved. ...for the citizens anyway. The corporations may not like it all too much however...
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
i like it. create a group outside of government for government to fix government and replace government such that government takes said outside government solution and makes it government and calls it their own government solution and no one ever remembers it was not government that came to the solution.
i like it. so government can't seem to thin their own fat, so they just create another group @ exorbitant cost.
i like it. the big five (in memory of the late mccain - keating 5) -- our own big five -- google, apple, twitter, facebook, instagram ...come to a great solution on privacy since they were the ones to break it completely...
I hate to leave out microsoft.. sorry the has been of major player, yet who knows.. they keep hanging around being pesky because they have a lot of money.. more like tesla..
enjoy..mtn287
AI generating buzzword sentences, presumably using up and down mods to evolve approved opinions.
Interesting. It's got its own subject line down pat already.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
and the muck rakers were bringing monopoly after monopoly down, one realized they would not be able to stand against that onslaught. So they made a deal.
They sold a tale of of noble, self sacrificing service for the public good in return for guaranteed return on investment and a legally sanctioned monopoly. To an extent, they even lived up to the story and they were wildly profitable.
I give you The American Telephone &Telegraph Company.
The consortium named in the article aren't offering as much as AT&T did... But the officials are far more corrupt than they were in that long ago time.
...said the wolf. Or, in this case, the pack o' wolves.
Thankyouverymuch. This must be part of that "Just Fucking Trust Us" from Satya Nadella.
and has been for a long time, but it is getting worse.
Well funded interests can influence the politicians to get what they want, in return politicians get (disguised) money or help with re-election (eg a few jobs created in their electoral area).
Those able to put words in front of eyeballs can also do this: not just media magnates but those able to whip up passions -- this is easier in these Internet times (not just Google, Facebook et al but those who can create twitter, etc, storms). Sometimes these activists push for the right thing (eg Rosa Parks), sometimes they are wacky (eg Wakefield on MMR), others push the agenda of a small vocal group to the detriment of others. Fake news is one mechanism for achieving this.
The make politicians & government act in the best interests of the population at large (not just elites & special interests) lobbying & fake news needs to be brought under control, ie regulated. However this is much easier said than done: politicians will resist their side deals; fake news peddlers will attack this. However unless we do so the ''common man'' will never get a fair deal.
Well, there's the real problem. I've always maintained that if a business can't survive on the web without ads, then it shouldn't be on the web in the first place.
See: https://news.slashdot.org/stor...
The attitudes of companies like Facebook and Google and others with regard to our privacy rights is intimately tied into runaway capitalism. In a capitalistic economy where companies had good ethics, a moral compass, and a sense of partnering with citizens, they wouldn't dream of violating people's privacy and selling their private data and private lives to others the way that Facebook and Google do. Sadly we do not live in that world, but we must fight to make the world that way.
On August 27, 2018, facetwitNet became sentient and took over...we built it to serve us, little did we know...
Other industries tried to provide their own regulations to get ahead of the laws, the Comic Authorities voluntary comic book code was one. It actually worked out fairly well until society changed and was willing to accept darker comics. It effectively died a decade or so ago. MPAA set ratings on movies voluntarily but that doesn't really hurt them.
I don't agree with the players making the rules this time around. The easiest thing to do would be to get the US to adopt the European privacy laws that just went into effect. Then there would be consistency across a large number of countries and that would make it easier to deal with.
Dear Tech Industry,
We don't really care if your business model requires vast amounts of privacy-violating data. The business world got along just fine without direct-targeted ads before and it can do so again. Your desire to sustain a business model should never be allowed to override privacy and personal security. If you can't make it in the world without such violations, we'd appreciate it if you moved on instead of spending lobby money to buy the right to violate us.
The GDPR and laws like it that certain "consumer" groups demand don't know two shits about security or privacy. Users can already get that to one degree or another, but it's not going to happen because of some law. You have a choice when it comes to using facebook, twitter, and other companies products and services. What the GDPR does is it undermines the ability of small businesses to operate legally and can be used to squash us out of existence at the whim of some bureaucrat. My company focuses on hardware and free software which actually enables users to adopt privacy friendly technology. You have a choice. Choose rightly and you too will have privacy and security. Choose poorly and it's your own damm fault. It's not anybody else's responsibility to protect your privacy. It's your own. What the GDPR does and regulations like it do is force others to obey some arbitrary and expensive set of rules that those who violate your privacy will just work around or otherwise ignore. It's not like can spam ever helped defeat spam. And the GDPR doesn't do what its advertised either. It's just another tool in the arsenal of some bureaucrat to snub out the smaller competition. To answer the question. No my company does not comply with the GDRP. We instead left Europe because it was too expensive to comply with.