It is vitally important that American's have reasonable protections for the personal information held and sold by the data-gathering industry.

Even more concerning is that the data-gathering industry has developed ways to marry online data with offline data.

The Republican discussion draft makes a change from H.R. 2221 to the definition of personal information.

However, this draft also removes key consumer protection provisions that weaken the bill and make it less effective.

Do you believe notification to consumers should also be required for breaches involving this kind of information?

And what about the language that speaks to impeding innovation? I don't know how you define that.

The consequences of this change are quite significant.

The Republican discussion draft, like H.R. 2221 before it, provides the FTC, your commission, with the ability to modify the definition of personal information.

It appears that American consumers have no free market method of showing disapproval if they feel their personal information is being misused.

That is a very important distinction, and I thank the chairman for making that comment.

Information brokers possess huge data profiles on a staggering number of Americans, nearly all of whom do no business with these brokers.