On the recordDecember 6, 2011
I thank the gentleman for yielding once again. And in response to my colleague from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), we have in fact been trying to work out our differences. The problem is that his definition of protecting privacy is not as extensive as my definition of protecting privacy. And I think my definition of protecting privacy is more consistent with consumers, because consumers keep filing these lawsuits to try to protect themselves from the disclosure of their personal information. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, which has been at the forefront of ensuring privacy protections for consumers in the information age, just last week secured a victory for Facebook users when its complaint to the Federal Trade Commission resulted in a settlement requiring Facebook to establish an extensive privacy program. Analytics Company and Web video Hulu.com have been hit with another privacy lawsuit over their alleged use of supercookies to track people. There is case after case after case of consumers' information being used, abused, and misused, and here we are making it easier for that to occur by saying you can give one time--they already have the authority to release the information when they download a movie now, but this will give one-time, universal coverage to release everything that I view on video. And that's inconsistent with what I think is necessary to protect the privacy of people in this electronic age.…
