OTI Reaffirms Support for FCC’s Privacy Proposal As House Republicans’ Attempt to Undermine It Falls Flat

Today, the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held an overtly partisan hearing on the FCC’s recent consumer privacy proposal, which OTI supports. Witnesses included Georgetown Law professor Paul Ohm, former Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz, who now represents the 21st Century Privacy Coalition, a group of communications providers and their trade associations opposed to the FCC’s new rule, and Doug Brake, a telecom policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

The FCC’s proposal provides that consumers should be allowed to choose how their ISPs use their data, and whether the ISPs can sell or otherwise disclose that data to third parties. The lynchpin of the proposal is the proposed opt-in consent regime for all uses that are not related to the broadband service, which would include targeted advertising for non-broadband products.

Many Congresspeople and panelists took issue with the FCC’s proposal for, among other things, creating consumer confusion, being contrary to the FTC’s framework, and being outside the FCC’s expertise. Professor Ohm, the sole supporter of the proposal on the panel, defended the proposal’s reasonableness, noting that, for instance, the consumer confusion argument cuts against one of the primary assumptions made in privacy regulation, that consumers are informed and act in their own best interests.

The following statement can be attributed to Eric Null, policy counsel at New America’s Open Technology Institute:

"Contrary to the efforts of the Subcommittee, today’s hearing failed to undermine the FCC’s broadband privacy proposal. Opponents of the FCC’s proposal brought forth no new arguments—they merely relied on the same, weak refrain that has been repeated elsewhere. OTI hopes the FCC moves quickly to ensure this proposal becomes law."