My Blog

By Saul Hansell

The debate on Internet privacy has begun in Congress.

I had a chance to sit down recently with Representative Rick Boucher, the long-serving Virginia Democrat, who has just replaced Ed Markey, the Democrat from Massachusetts, as the chairman of the House Subcommittee looking after telecommunications, technology and the Internet. Mr. Boucher is widely regarded as one of the most technologically savvy members of Congress.

As he ticked off his top priorities for his panel, most involved the pressing demands of telecommunications regulation. There is a law governing how local TV stations are carried on satellite broadcasters that needs to be renewed. There is the Universal Service Fund, which takes money from most telephone customers to pay for rural service to be improved. And there is the conversion to digital television and the investments in rural broadband to be supervised.

But high on his list is a topic that is very much under his discretion: passing a bill to regulate the privacy of Internet users.

“Internet users should be able to know what information is collected about them and have the opportunity to opt out,” he said.

While he hasn’t written the bill yet, Mr. Boucher said that he, working with Representative Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican who is the ranking minority member on the subcommittee, wants to require Web sites to disclose how they collect and use data, and give users the option to opt out of any data collection. That’s not a big change from what happens now, at least on most big sites.

But in what could be a big change from current practice, Mr. Boucher wants sites to get explicit permission from users — an “opt in” — if they are going to share information with other companies.

“I think that strikes the right balance,” he said. “Web site operators are very concerned that if they have an opt-in regime for the internal marketing of the Web site themselves it would be very disruptive. The default position of most Internet users will be not to check any boxes at all. It is a very different matter if the site takes the information and sells it to gain revenue.”

I spoke to Mr. Boucher on the day that Google announced its new plan to track data about customers for advertising. And I asked him about such behavioral targeting, which presents an ad based on what you did on other sites.

“That would clearly need an opt in,” he said.

If that’s how a final law is written, it would significantly disrupt a fair number of advertising businesses. And lobbyists for Internet companies and trade groups told me they are preparing to “educate” Mr. Boucher on the benefits of targeted ads.

Mr. Boucher told me that he is convinced that privacy legislation will actually be good for Internet companies.

“Our goal is to enhance user confidence in the online experience,” he said. “Web sites will understand that enhancing confidence will improve their business.”

Some companies, led by Microsoft, have called for comprehensive privacy laws, as Europe has. Mr. Boucher said he just wants to write rules for the Internet. Certain other areas, such as medical and financial records, already have existing privacy laws.

Of course, there is a very long way to go between a congressman saying he will introduce a bill and the President signing it into law. And other key House and Senate leaders who would be involved in any privacy legislation have yet to articulate clear points of view on the subject. Nor has the Obama administration said anything publicly whether it wants any new privacy laws.

But there are certainly signs that the topic is of interest. The stimulus bill attached tough new privacy controls to the electronic medical records provisions. And Jon Leibowitz, whom the president appointed to head the Federal Trade Commission, is a long-time privacy advocate.

But even if a privacy bill doesn’t make it all the way to the president’s desk, the fact the subject is being considered is already encouraging Internet companies and trade groups to come up with tighter standards for protecting data used for advertising in the hope that they can persuade Congress that a new law isn’t needed.