Danny Blumberg
Consumer Advocacy Groups Voice Concerns Over White House Proposal
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/23/4285987/white-house-plan-for-privacy-bill.html
The White House’s newly released Consumer Data Privacy white paper proposes a co-regulatory process to implement the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. Recent class readings describe how a multi-stakeholder process can provide benefits such as increased compliance and innovative solutions, but several consumer advocacy groups are concerned about the regulatory process which will be conducted by the Department of Commerce (and likely enforced by the FTC). The Commerce Department’s role is to promote business interests, not consumers, and so advocacy groups are worried that large tech companies such as Google and Facebook will have too much influence during the process. Consequently, the advocacy groups are asking that the process be public to maximize transparency and increase participation from a broad range of public interest groups.
The multi-stakeholder proposal can be found here: http://www.worldprivacyforum.org/pdf/MultiStakeholderPrinciples2012fs.pdf. Signatories to the baseline principles include the World Privacy Forum, American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Consumer Watchdog, Electronic Frontier Foundation, National Consumers League, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and U.S. PIRG.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/23/4285987/white-house-plan-for-privacy-bill.html#storylink=cpy