A recent press release reports, “Today U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and fellow senior members Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Ed Markey (D-MA) unveiled comprehensive federal online privacy legislation to establish privacy rights, outlaw harmful and deceptive practices, and improve data security safeguards for the record number of American consumers who now shop or conduct business online.”

The release goes on, “With new numbers showing that nearly sixty percent of all holiday spending will be done online—making this the largest online holiday shopping season ever —families everywhere want strong action taken to protect their online privacy and data security. Says former Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection and Georgetown Law Professor David Vladeck: ‘The bill not only codifies privacy as a right —a measure long overdue —but it also recognizes that ‘rights’ that are unenforceable are empty gestures. For that reason, the bill not only restores control of personal information to consumers, but equally important, the bill gives consumers and the Federal Trade Commission real tools to hold companies accountable when they collect information without permission, when they fail to reasonably safeguard consumers’ information, or when they misuse that information’.” 

Read more at cantwell.senate.gov.

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