CWA urges comprehensive online privacy protections

The Communications Workers of America urged comprehensive online privacy protections in a letter to US Senate and House Commerce Committee leadership. The letter comes as public outrage grows against the Republican rollback of ISP privacy rules.

“The public outcry against congressional repeal of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) broadband privacy rules demonstrates strong bipartisan support for government action to protect consumers’ privacy online,” CWA wrote.

CWA argued that protecting online privacy requires rules that cover all online activity. The FCC’s now-repealed rules applied only to ISPs, but did not cover websites, which are subject to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) jurisdiction. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) has called for legislation to empower the FTC to adopt comprehensive rules, and now is the time to move forward with legislation that would to protect user privacy across the Internet, including from data-mining companies like Google and Facebook.

“The FCC’s rules – while positive in providing strong protections against abusive behavior by ISPs – tilted the value proposition generated by digital activity away from broadband providers that are spending tens of billions of dollars investing in job-creating network infrastructure,” the letter noted. “CWA looks to your leadership to craft legislation to protect consumers from the unscrupulous practices of any company that can collect and monetize data – whether it is an ISP or a website.”

Links:

Letter from CWA President Shelton urging comprehensive online privacy protections (CWA, Apr. 21, 2017)

Public outrage against Republican rollback of ISP privacy rules (Speed Matters, Apr. 10, 2017)

Rep. Pallone calls for legislation that empowers the FTC to protect consumer privacy (Speed Matters, Oct. 6, 2017)

Here’s why Google fights so hard to get your data (Speed Matters, Nov. 7, 2016)