The FCC says it can’t force Google
and Facebook to stop tracking their users
Federal Communication
Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler (Brendan Smialowski/AFP,
file)
The Federal Communications Commission said Friday that it
will not seek to impose a requirement on Google, Facebook
and other Internet companies that would make it harder for
them to track consumers’ online activities.
The
announcement is a blow to privacy advocates who had
petitioned the agency for stronger Internet privacy rules.
But it's a win for many Silicon Valley companies whose
business models rely on monetizing Internet users’ personal
data.
It's also the latest move in an ongoing battle to defend
the agency’s new net neutrality rules, which opponents
warned would result in the regulation of popular Web sites
and online services. By rejecting the petition, the FCC
likely hopes to defuse that argument. The rules, which took
effect this summer, allow the FCC to regulate only providers
of Internet access, not individual Web sites, said a senior
agency official.
Consumer Watchdog, an activist group, petitioned the FCC
in June to support a technology that would allow consumers
to signal to Web sites that they did not want to be tracked.
By clicking a button in their browser settings, users would
have been able to send a “do not track” message to Web site
operators when they surfed the Internet.
Some Web sites have committed to honoring those requests
voluntarily, but many do not. If it had succeeded, the
petition could have made Do Not Track a U.S. standard.
In a sign of its growing ambitions, however, the FCC has
dramatically expanded its role in combating privacy
violations among communications providers. Agency officials
slapped Cox Communications, the country’s fourth-largest
cable Internet company, with a $595,000 fine Thursday to
settle charges related to a breach of consumer data. It
has also
gone after AT&T and a number of
smaller telecom companies for similar security breaches.
Although the agency appears to be stopping short of
establishing privacy rules for Web site operators, it is
studying how net neutrality could allow it to set new
privacy expectations for Internet providers.
Outside attempts by industry and privacy advocates to
define and enforce a Do Not Track standard have been
plagued by delays, as well as debates over what such a
signal would require.
Privacy groups argue that Do Not Track should mean
that no information is collected about a user. Online
advertising groups say Do Not Track should prevent a
company from serving up targeted advertisements but not
impede data collection. This debate, however, has been
superseded by
even newer tracking technologies that Do Not Track
is not designed to address.
The current Do Not Track proposal before the
World Wide
Web Consortium, an international Web standards body,
has faced criticism from privacy advocates and leaders
on Capitol Hill who say it does not do enough to protect
consumers from companies that track users. In a
letter to the group sent last month, Sens. Ed Markey
(D-Mass.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Rep. Joe Barton
(R-Tex.) expressed concerns about the plan.
“Under the standard, first parties are free to
continue tracking online activity even if a user
activates the 'Do Not Track' signal and can share that
information among its many affiliates,” the lawmakers
wrote.
Brian Fung covers technology for The Washington
Post, focusing on telecommunications and the
Internet. Before joining the Post, he was the
technology correspondent for National Journal and an
associate editor at the Atlantic.
Andrea
Peterson covers technology policy for The Washington
Post, with an emphasis on cybersecurity, consumer
privacy, transparency, surveillance and open
government.
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