Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, my amendment would exempt settlement agreements that strengthen the personal privacy of Americans from the blanket prohibition in this legislation. More specifically, it would preserve the ability of civil enforcement agencies to compel large corporations to adopt programs to protect consumer data. Under this bill, these agencies would be prohibited from reaching settlement agreements that provide payments to nongovernmental parties. It would only exempt payments to provide restitution for actual harm directly and proximately caused by the party making the payment. As a result, H.R. 5063 would potentially prohibit payments for required monitoring and other payments for generalized harm due to privacy breaches. As Professor David Uhlmann of the University of Michigan Law School pointed out during the subcommittee hearing for this bill, it could ``preclude all third-party payments in settlement agreements, other than restitution to identifiable victims.'' This is particularly problematic in the consumer privacy context where the harms may be diffuse or systemic. In such instances, the most appropriate remedy may involve prescribing steps that effectively prevent future misconduct rather than ones that focus exclusively on addressing previous faults. For instance, the Federal Trade Commission has used its authority under Section 5(a) of the FTC Act to resolve complaints involving unfair or deceptive practices.…”