Congressman To Offer Up Ridiculous New Privacy Bill

from the oh,-please-make-it-stop dept

This is getting ridiculous. How is it that our Congress can repeatedly put forth the most ridiculous bills out there, and no one votes these idiots out of office? We've already trashed Senator Hollings "consumer protection" bill and now there's news that a Congressman is getting ready to his own "web privacy" bill that is about anything but protecting individual's privacy. If you look at the details, it basically guarantees that we won't have privacy - as it only provides an opt-out option and no support for opt-in. Even worse, if there are state laws that require stricter privacy rules, this bill will supercede them and make them not count any more. It's amazing that this bill comes out of a "consumer protection" subcommittee - since it's all about helping corporations. The article also has a great quote from a lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce saying that while this bill is better than the Hollings bill, it still doesn't go far enough. What do they want? That we should all be required by law to tell advertisers everything they want to know about us at all times?
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