This website collects cookies to deliver better user experience. Cookie Policy
Accept
Sign In
The Wall Street Publication
  • Home
  • Trending
  • U.S
  • World
  • Politics
  • Business
    • Business
    • Economy
    • Real Estate
    • Markets
    • Personal Finance
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
    • Lifestyle
    • Style
    • Arts
  • Health
  • Sports
  • Entertainment
Reading: FTC’s Effort to Strengthen Online Privacy Protections Faces Hurdles
Share
The Wall Street PublicationThe Wall Street Publication
Font ResizerAa
Search
  • Home
  • Trending
  • U.S
  • World
  • Politics
  • Business
    • Business
    • Economy
    • Real Estate
    • Markets
    • Personal Finance
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
    • Lifestyle
    • Style
    • Arts
  • Health
  • Sports
  • Entertainment
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
© 2024 The Wall Street Publication. All Rights Reserved.
The Wall Street Publication > Blog > Tech > FTC’s Effort to Strengthen Online Privacy Protections Faces Hurdles
Tech

FTC’s Effort to Strengthen Online Privacy Protections Faces Hurdles

Editorial Board Published November 2, 2021
Share
FTC’s Effort to Strengthen Online Privacy Protections Faces Hurdles
SHARE

The Federal Trade Commission has outlined a far-reaching vision for protecting consumers’ privacy online, but the plan faces challenges including budget constraints, personnel changes and potential legal pushback.

Contents
Congress is likely to play a role in determining the FTC’s impact on data privacy.Newsletter Sign-upWSJ Pro CybersecurityNoah Phillips, a Republican FTC commissioner.

Critics of big technology companies have praised the FTC’s effort, which comes after years of inaction in Congress on the issue, even as businesses have ramped up data collection. The FTC has pledged to go it alone by intensifying scrutiny of digital advertising and exploring new rules for how companies can collect and use consumers’ information.

The agency hasn’t announced the start of any broad rule-making process. But its new chairwoman, Lina Khan, a Democrat who has criticized big business, said in an October statement on the FTC’s data strategy that she intends to explore privacy standards as she probes emerging technologies, discriminatory data practices and companies’ amassing of consumer information to cement their market power.

Congress is likely to play a role in determining the FTC’s impact on data privacy.

Photo: Pavlo Gonchar/Zuma Press

Current and former FTC officials say budgetary wrangling in Congress will shape the agency’s ultimate impact on data privacy. Some observers also caution that writing broadly defined privacy rules under a rarely used authority known as Magnuson-Moss might lead the agency into legal gray areas that could result in successful industry lawsuits.

“For those who say that Congress hasn’t acted, so let’s have the FTC do it, it’s an uphill climb,” said Jessica Rich, who stepped down as director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection in 2017 and now works for law firm Kelley Drye & Warren LLP.

The agency is reviewing piecemeal data regulations authorized in specific laws, issuing an update last week to a rule requiring financial institutions to secure customer data.

Some Democratic lawmakers have also urged the FTC to use its Magnuson-Moss authority, established in 1975, to write more general rules for data usage. Under that authority, the FTC could prohibit certain activity and potentially fine companies on the first offense.

To restrict a behavior under a rule created through Magnuson-Moss, the agency would have to argue it constitutes an unfair or deceptive practice that harms consumers, said Justin Brookman, a former FTC official who is now director of consumer privacy and technology policy for advocacy group Consumer Reports. There is little precedent for such arguments about privacy and they could be challenged in court, Mr. Brookman said: “We’re off the map here.”

Consumer advocates say the agency could use such power to restrict digital advertising, which relies on an opaque exchange of data among businesses to target users with content. Representatives for Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon.com Inc., which together control about 90% of the digital advertising market, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Members of Congress have likened Facebook and Instagram’s tactics to that of the tobacco industry. WSJ’s Joanna Stern reviews the hearings of both to explore what cigarette regulation can tell us about what may be coming for Big Tech. Photo illustration: Adele Morgan/The Wall Street Journal

Julie Brill, Microsoft Corp.’s chief privacy officer, said new privacy standards could improve trust in the technology sector by zeroing in on data brokers or “gatekeepers” that take potentially anticompetitive actions through measures aimed at security or privacy.

Ms. Brill, a former FTC commissioner, didn’t name particular companies. Google has drawn such criticism over its decision to end third-party cookies that rival companies use to target ads. Apple Inc.’s recent move to restrict how users are tracked on mobile devices has also come under fire from companies that say they have to spend a lot more money to find new customers. A representative for Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment.

While the Biden administration has promised to hold big tech companies accountable, broad rules could prevent businesses from making innovative use of consumer data in the future, said James Cooper, a former official in the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection who is now an associate professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. Such regulations could take several years to complete despite Democratic commissioners voting in July to streamline the Magnuson-Moss process, Mr. Cooper added.


Newsletter Sign-up

WSJ Pro Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity news, analysis and insights from WSJ’s global team of reporters and editors.


Ms. Khan, who became FTC chairwoman in June, in her recent statement on the agency’s data strategy called for a shift away from the “notice-and-consent” framework for privacy, in which companies explain their data practices and ask for consumers’ permission to collect and use their information. Ms. Khan wrote that policing unfair or deceptive practices through that lens can sidestep “more fundamental questions about whether certain types of data collection and processing should be permitted in the first place.”

The agency told Congress that its inquiries into such behaviors would include more aggressive probes of digital platforms and enforcement of existing settlements with companies such as Facebook, now called Meta.

The FTC said the expansion would hinge on at least tripling the size of its Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, which has about 40 staffers.

Democratic lawmakers in September suggested creating a new FTC privacy bureau with $1 billion in funding from President Biden’s social-policy plan. But the administration last week pared down the sum to $500 million in its latest blueprint for the package.

Ms. Khan has introduced her approach amid a personnel shake-up that could influence potential rule-making, current and former officials said.

Two staffers who have overseen the FTC’s privacy work in recent years, the deputy director of the Consumer Protection Bureau and the associate director of the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, left in October to join law firms. An agency spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment on the departures.

Noah Phillips, a Republican FTC commissioner.

Photo: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg News

Separately, President Biden nominated Alvaro Bedoya, a privacy scholar at Georgetown University, to an open seat on the commission. If approved by the Senate, Mr. Bedoya’s appointment would return Democrats to the majority of the five-member panel. The commission currently has two Democrats and two Republicans.

Noah Phillips, a GOP commissioner, said that differing views on FTC rules illustrate why Congress is best suited to define guardrails, rather than the panel on which he could soon be in the minority.

“The resolution of that question is much better had by elected officials than by, potentially, just three people,” he said.

Write to David Uberti at [email protected]

Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

TAGGED:Tech NewsWall Street Publication
Share This Article
Twitter Email Copy Link Print
Previous Article Trump presidential commission weighed  trillion from China for pandemic damage Trump presidential commission weighed $10 trillion from China for pandemic damage
Next Article ‘Bad Bets,’ Episode 4 ‘Bad Bets,’ Episode 4

Editor's Pick

Alyssa Farah Griffin: ‘The View’ Co-Host is Pregnant With Child #1!

Alyssa Farah Griffin: ‘The View’ Co-Host is Pregnant With Child #1!

Studying Time: 3 minutes The View co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin is pregnant! On ‘The View,’ Alyssa Farah Griffin breaks the…

By Editorial Board 3 Min Read
Man fatally shot throughout argument over lady at gathering at Tuscaloosa storage unit; suspect jailed
Man fatally shot throughout argument over lady at gathering at Tuscaloosa storage unit; suspect jailed

One individual was killed and a number of other others injured in…

2 Min Read
Amy Duggar Describes Studying Grandfather Was a ‘Predator’
Amy Duggar Describes Studying Grandfather Was a ‘Predator’

Studying Time: 4 minutes Amy Duggar King grew up figuring out and…

6 Min Read

Oponion

Single-family home in Saratoga sells for .4 million

Single-family home in Saratoga sells for $5.4 million

Bay Space House Report 13570 Beaumont Avenue – Google Road…

December 13, 2024

Americans Are Emerging From the Pandemic Ready to Splurge on Events and Travel

Resume Subscription We are delighted that…

February 17, 2022

Trump tariffs a giant issue – however newest UK financial efficiency makes for disagreeable studying | Cash Information

Economists suspected that the comfy progress…

June 12, 2025

Nikki Garcia Has A Lot to Say About Artem Chigvintsev Divorce

Studying Time: 3 minutes As beforehand…

January 30, 2025

Unilever’s $68 Billion Health Kick Is the Wrong Remedy

Unilever’s UL 1.14% bid for GlaxoSmithKline’s…

January 17, 2022

You Might Also Like

The Greatest Carpet Cleaners We have Discovered, Examined in Busy Households
Tech

The Greatest Carpet Cleaners We have Discovered, Examined in Busy Households

Evaluate Our PicksOthers Examined{Photograph}: Simon HillHoover HF4 Hydro for £199: For UK people in flats or small homes with a…

11 Min Read
The Amazfit T-Rex 3 Professional Is Like a Low cost Garmin That Does not Work
Tech

The Amazfit T-Rex 3 Professional Is Like a Low cost Garmin That Does not Work

Every little thing. Every little thing concerning the consumer expertise is the catch. It’s the catchiest catch. Just about each…

2 Min Read
Gear Information of the Week: Intel’s New Chips Arrive, and Apple Might Debut iPads and MacBooks This Month
Tech

Gear Information of the Week: Intel’s New Chips Arrive, and Apple Might Debut iPads and MacBooks This Month

Intel's future has by no means appeared so unsure. However a lot of the firm's roller-coaster journey of a 12…

5 Min Read
The Corvette E-Ray Is Dynamically Up There With the Greatest
Tech

The Corvette E-Ray Is Dynamically Up There With the Greatest

A 1.9-kWh lithium-ion battery has been packaged inside the automotive’s already beefy central tunnel, and extra cooling has been added…

3 Min Read
The Wall Street Publication

About Us

The Wall Street Publication, a distinguished part of the Enspirers News Group, stands as a beacon of excellence in journalism. Committed to delivering unfiltered global news, we pride ourselves on our trusted coverage of Politics, Business, Technology, and more.

Company

  • About Us
  • Newsroom Policies & Standards
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Careers
  • Media & Community Relations
  • WP Creative Group
  • Accessibility Statement

Contact

  • Contact Us
  • Contact Customer Care
  • Advertise
  • Licensing & Syndication
  • Request a Correction
  • Contact the Newsroom
  • Send a News Tip
  • Report a Vulnerability

Term of Use

  • Digital Products Terms of Sale
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Settings
  • Submissions & Discussion Policy
  • RSS Terms of Service
  • Ad Choices

© 2024 The Wall Street Publication. All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?