Facebook, Google and other Internet companies are emerging business heavyweights, and they're beginning to flex their considerable political muscle in Sacramento.
Pitted against law enforcement and consumer groups on privacy legislation, the big Internet companies have blocked the progress of one bill, and, with a key deadline approaching, they're aggressively lobbying to bury another.
Senate Bill 242 offers some relatively modest privacy protections, especially for children. Specifically, the bill by state Sen. Ellen Corbett would allow parents to direct Web site operators to delete personal information, such as home addresses and phone numbers, that had been posted by their children. It also would require Internet companies to remove an adult's information upon request.
Corbett's bill stalled last Thursday on a 16-16 roll call, meaning eight senators were missing in action. Apparently most of them weren't too far away: The San Leandro Democrat's request for another chance to present her bill sailed through on a 38-0 vote. Corbett has until Friday, the deadline for bills to clear their house of origin, to secure Senate approval.
The Internet companies' other big target is SB 761 by state Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, which would require them to allow people to opt out of having personal data collected for sale while they browse online. Lowenthal's bill is stuck in the Senate Appropriations Committee, meaning it's not likely to go anywhere this year.
How widespread is the practice of compiling and selling the browsing habits and personal information of Internet users?
According to a 2010 investigation by the Wall Street Journal, "one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet . . . is the business of spying on Internet users." The Journal article, headlined "The Web's New Gold Mine: Your Secrets," noted that tracking technology is growing increasingly sophisticated and that advertisers pay premium prices for detailed information to help them tailor advertising pitches for particular Internet users or categories of users.
Our primary concern isn't advertising, which you can find in this newspaper and on pressdemocrat.com. The issue is who controls information that can be used fraudulently.
Corbett's bill specifies such things as driver's license, bank account, credit card and Social Security numbers in allowing people to have personal information deleted from a website.
Allowing people to opt out, as proposed by Lowenthal, is a way to ensure that their information isn't collected and sold without their consent. The makers of several popular browsers, including Firefox and Internet Explorer, include tools that allow users to indicate that they don't want to be tracked. But Internet companies aren't required to respect their wishes.
Companies including Facebook, Google and Yahoo argue that state regulations are unworkable for the Internet. Perhaps they will support a federal law. Measures similar to Corbett's and Lowenthal's are pending in the U.S. Senate. As a matter of state or federal law, Internet users should have more control over personal information.
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