A national law limiting the information businesses can gather on consumers online is looking increasingly likely after the chairman of the powerful US senate commerce committee became the latest politician to jump on a growing bandwagon for do-not-track legislation.
Senator John Rockefeller is reported to have said he plans to introduce a bill next week that will require companies give online shoppers the opportunity to opt out of online tracking and empower the Federal Trade Commission to take action against organizations that don't.
AdAge reports that while the bill - called the Do-Not-Track Online Act of 2011 - has not yet been published, so the details aren't known, Rockefeller has taken onboard do-not-track features being added to Mozilla's Firefox and Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Rockerfeller said in a statement:
Consumers have a right to know when and how their personal and sensitive information is being used online and most importantly to be able to say 'no thanks' when companies seek to gather that information without their approval... This bill will offer a simple, straightforward way for people to stop companies from tracking their every move on the Internet.
Rockerfeller's bill would become the second piece of Do-Not-Track legislation on the table in the US Congress and the third piece tackling the subject of consumers' data online.
It follows the Do Not Track Me Online Act introduced to the US House of Representatives in Washington DC in February by Democrat Jackie Speier. Meanwhile, Senators and former US presidential candidates John McCain and John Kerry in April submitted their Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act (here; PDF) that requires companies trading online to provide clear notice about what information is being collected and for what purposes.
However, the McCain-Kerry bill simply codifies much of what's already going on online while it also allows organizations that have an "established business relationship" with the individual to continue collecting data. AdAge reports that Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook sent an "army" of lawyers to the offices of McCain and Kerry to argue for terms that would exempt the site.
It also reported that the wording of the McCain-Kerry bill was changed from requiring consumers to opt-in before data could be collected in a concession to the industry.
It seems the Rockerfeller bill could have been introduced to put a do-not-track provision into the mix of discussions at the Senate, and it's very possible the two bills could be merged rather than have separate and overlapping laws once the debate is done.
It is also probably that what does emerge would be merged with Speier's Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act. It typically happens in the US legislative process that bills on the same subjects from both houses are merged before being sent to the President to be signed.
This week, state politicians in California began debating their own do-not-track legislation, a piece of work that's being opposed by Google, AOL, and Yahoo! in addition to two technology trade associations to which the companies belong: TechNet and CTIA.
Google is the only browser manufacture to have individually come out against California's proposed law, signing it's corporate name to a letter to state politicians claiming the bill "gratuitously" singles out advertising companies for special regulation.
Consumer Watchdog - a consumer rights group supporting the passage of the Californian bill - welcomed news of Rockerfeller's bill. "This is an idea whose time has come and I believe people will finally get the protection they are demanding. Sen. Rockefeller should be commended for pushing the issue," Consumer Watchdog said in a statement.
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