A New Internet Privacy Law?

New York Times. "A New Internet Privacy Law?" March 19, 2011: 22.

This is an editorial discussing the new push for privacy regulations by the government, specifically the Obama Administration, John Kerry in the senate, and John McCain. There is some support from companies such as Microsoft for this endeavor, but advertisers are still lobbying to keep the free trade aspect of the internet as it exists now. The outpouring of interest and support for some type of privacy standards seems to be outweighing the efforts of advertisers, yet the question remains about whether the proposed standards will be enough to make a difference. One possible solution that Kerry proposes is to allow companies to write their own privacy plans and submit them to the FTC, but one has to wonder how effective this will be given the overcomplexity of companies’ privacy policies now.