Privacy Continues to Drive Chairman Bono Mack Legislative Agenda

Earlier this week the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade held a hearing entitled “Understanding Consumer Attitudes About Privacy.”  Subcommittee Chairman Bono Mack stated that “despite everything that I have heard in our previous hearings, I still remain somewhat skeptical right now of both industry and government. Frankly, I don’t believe industry has proven that it’s doing enough to protect American consumers, while government.  Unfortunately, tends to overreach whenever it comes to new regulations.”

The witness list was a cross-section of mostly industry representatives from the private companies, trade organizations and coalitions.  Among the testimony that stood out was from Linda Woolley, testifying on behalf of the Digital Advertising Alliance, the group behind the industry self-regulation program, rejected the need for government interference. “The industry is doing a better job than government,” Woolley said. “We are nimble and we can move quickly.” The DAA created and began to implement its self-regulation in less than year, a timeframe the government couldn’t match, Woolley claimed in Politico.

Although the industry argued in favor of self-regulation, a few members from the subcommittee argued in favor of new regulations. Congressman Joe Barton, co-chair of the Congressional Privacy Caucus expressed support for new privacy regulations. This privacy hearing was one in a series of hearings conducted by Chairman Bono Mack.  It is clear that the chairman of this subcommittee is very focused on privacy and there will be more hearings to come.  Whether these efforts will translate into legislation will be a difficult hurdle to overcome.  However, it is clear that the industry is moving rapidly to address many of the concerns consumers have about privacy via best practices and self-regulation.