By: Jordan Mitchell
September 4, 2019
It’s time we speak frankly about a very personal matter: your privacy on the internet.
It seems everyone these days wants to protect it. The European Union enacted a sweeping new set of laws, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to safeguard it. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), passed rapidly under duress, goes into effect in January. The U.S. Congress is debating Federal regulations that could pre-empt California and many other states considering their own privacy-protection laws. Facebook, facing widespread criticism for its mishandling of consumer data with the English consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, is implementing new procedures nearly every month to provide users more transparency into and control over their data. Apple is on a path to block virtually all advertiser access to usage data on its devices. Google is publicly mulling changes to its Chrome browser to create a “privacy sandbox” that will enable users to control their data while still enabling ad-supported content.
But here’s the frank talk we need to have: None of it will work, unless we work together. Four or five giant companies, each advancing its own competitive position against the others, won’t protect your privacy. Government regulators, passing conflicting laws with underfunded enforcement at the trans-regional, national, state, and local levels, won’t protect it. Self-regulatory bodies, including our own, which lack the legal authority to enforce compliance with their procedures, won’t protect it.