White House Releases Watered-Down Privacy Bill

The White House released a proposed bill to protect consumers' digital privacy, the Washington Post's Andrea Peterson reports, but the bill may not be strong enough. The Federal Trade Commission said that the legislation wouldn't provide "strong and enforceable protections" for consumer privacy. The bill would allow industries to develop their own privacy codes of conduct, which the FTC could then enforce. But the bill would preempt state laws dealing with data collection and handling and could preempt state laws like California's that have more stringent standards than at the federal level for data breaches, the privacy of minors and other consumer protection laws. The Recorder's Cheryl Miller notes that a private right of action is explicitly rejected, but that state attorneys general as well as the FTC would have enforcement authority.