Adam Cohen writes:
… The Obama administration’s privacy guidelines are a step in the right direction. They create a “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights,” which contains good privacy principles, starting with “individual control,” meaning that consumers have the right to exercise control over what personal data is collected about them and how it is used. And the administration is calling on Google, Facebook, and other Internet companies to sit down with privacy advocates to develop codes of conduct for protecting Internet users’ data.
That’s the good news. But there are also some real problems. The guidelines are broadly phrased and allow a great deal of wiggle room. For example, they say that consumers have a right to “reasonable” limits on the personal data that companies collect and retain – and “reasonable” is just the sort of word that can be stretched beyond all recognition. To take effect, the guidelines will need to be turned into an actual law by Congress – and before the lobbyists are done, worthy principles may be turned into toothless rules.
Read more of his commentary on Time.
All things being equal, I’d much rather have a proper privacy amendment in the Constitution