Reports

FTC Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch has released a Statement questioning the agency’s approach to proposals contained is a preliminary staff report released late last year on protecting consumer privacy on the internet.  The statement was issued in conjunction with a prepared FTC testimony for the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade and the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology regarding the staff report.

Commissioner Rosch emphasized that:

It is easy to attack practices that threaten data security. There is a consensus in both the United States and Europe that those practices are pernicious, and the Commission has successfully challenged them. It is also easy to attack practices that compromise certain personally identifiable information (“PII”) like one’s social security number, confidential financial or health data, or other sensitive information, such as that respecting children. . . . On the other hand, some of the “tracking” that occurs routinely is benign, such as tracking to ensure against advertisement repetition and other tracking activities that are essential to ensuring the smooth operation of websites and internet browsing. But we do not know enough about other kinds of “tracking” – or what consumers think about it – to reach any conclusions about whether most consumers consider it good, bad or are indifferent.

Attached below are Commissioner Rosch’s Statement, the FTC Testimony, and the FTC Staff Report “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers”

J. Thomas Rosch-DissentingStatement

PreparedStatement-internetprivacytestimony

FTC-privacyreport