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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...
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.
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.