The Obama Administration recently unveiled The Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights,(1) which outlines a series of goals and policies that aim to build a stronger(2) data privacy framework to protect consumers’ privacy online. Unfortunately, the proposal will likely fail to meaningfully protect consumer privacy, and it may actually make things worse. This essay briefly examines one of the proposal’s critical weaknesses.

Notes

1 : See We Can’t Wait: Obama Administration Calls for A Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights for the Digital Age, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/02/23/we-can-t-wait-obama-administration-calls-consumer-privacy-bill-rights-digital-age.

2 : Apparently the Administration is of the view that the current consumer data privacy framework in the US is, “in fact, strong.” See Consumer Data Privacy in a Networked World: A Framework for Protecting Privacy and Promoting Innovation in the Global Digital Economy, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/privacy-final.pdf.