Ftc Report Online Privacy Needs Legislation

The Federal Trade Commission has released the third in a series of online privacy reports (see links at the end of the article), calling for government intervention to achieve higher compliance with their four fair information practices: "Notification, Choice, Access, and Security". This reverses the Commission's previous stance of allowing self-regulation.

Casting a dissenting vote on the release of the report, Commissioner Orson Swindle slammed the recommendation as "unwarranted" and called it questioned its presentation of fact, analytical logic, and conclusions. He concludes his 27-page dissension by stating that the recommendation "defies not just logic but also fundamental principles of governance. In recognition of some of the complexities of regulating privacy -- particularly Access and Security -- the Commission asks Congress to require all commercial consumer-oriented Web sites to comply with extensive, yet vaguely phrased, privacy requirements and to give the Commission (or some other agency) a blank check to resolve the difficult policy issues later. This would constitute a troubling devolution of power from our elected officials to unelected bureaucrats."

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