The government, when it eventually gets around to meeting, will likely implement legislation that will address online privacy. I think both parties feel the need, possibly for different reasons, to respond to public concerns.
You have organizations such as the Association of National Advertisers pushing for their version of national privacy law. Of course, business interests have a particular perspective on things, but this national organization feels pushed into backing something because individual states are taking action and this makes it complicated for concerns that would find it very difficult to meet inconsistent standards from one location to another. The Internet is not sensitive to geographic boundaries.
A reasonable use of data might be, in the ANA’s view, the collection and use of non-sensitive data for advertising purposes, so long as consumers are given transparency, notice and choice.
Of course, this would be what I think we have now and it assumes that we all read the terms of service when we sign up for social media. Getting approval for such a position would overrule state positions with more specific expectations.
John Battelle, speaking for us old tech folks, claims we brought this on ourselves. We bought into an idealistic view based on the early days of Web 2.0 and failed to track the inevitable pressure of business models. Failure to see what was emerging was certainly the case for those without an early interest in technology who at some point discovered what seemed like free services. According to Battelle, you can’t blame Facebook even though Facebook might be the poster child for the privacy backlash. The companies that have emerged, whether purposefully or not, have created a situation that
We have created a situation in which government has to become involved as is the case when things get out of hand and it is no longer possible to depend on fair competition to find good solutions.