3/26/2017

FCC/INTERNET PRIVACY/POLITICS: “Now that Republicans are in charge, the federal government is poised to roll back regulations limiting access to consumers’ online data. States have other ideas.
As on climate change, immigration and a host of other issues, some state legislatures may prove to be a counterweight to Washington by enacting new regulations to increase consumers’ privacy rights.
Illinois legislators are considering a ‘right to know’ bill that would let consumers find out what information about them is collected by companies like Google and Facebook, and what kinds of businesses they share it with. Such a right, which European consumers already have, has been a longtime goal of privacy advocates.
Two other proposals face a crucial Illinois House committee vote this week. One would regulate when consumers’ locations can be tracked by smartphone applications, and another would limit the use of microphones in internet-connected devices like mobile phones, smart TVs and personal assistants like Amazon’s Echo.
Should they be passed into law, these rules could end up guiding the rights of consumers far beyond Illinois — because they would provide a model for other states, and because it would be difficult for technology companies with hundreds of millions of users to create a patchwork of state- and country-specific features to localize their effects.”

-Conor Doughherty, ” Push for Internet Privacy Rules Moves to Statehouses,” The New York Times online, March 26, 2017