Why Congress was right to halt FCC’s web privacy rules

For a generation, the internet’s success has relied on the common-sense principle of making things easy for consumers.

From the smartphone to streaming video services, experience shows that consumers respond enthusiastically and in droves when given clear, uniform, workable and easily understood options.

Unfortunately, last fall, the Federal Communications Commission took a giant step back from this sound principle by imposing rules that make the internet an inconsistent and confusing place.

The issue involves online privacy and the federal requirements that govern how your online information is used by advertisers, websites and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). For millions of Americans, this is extremely important.

That’s why so many commenters, including the Federal Trade Commission, urged the FCC to approve a system in keeping with what we know is successful – straightforward rules that are consistent across the entire internet.

The FCC utterly failed, which is why Congress was right to step in to correct its mistake.

Sen. Jeff Flake’s vote to pull back the FCC’s flawed rules before they took effect was a strong pro-consumer step to reset this debate and give policymakers another chance to get the issue right.

The biggest problem with the FCC’s action is that the rules it crafted conflict with well-established online privacy requirements already implemented by the FTC.

For years, the FTC has implemented a comprehensive privacy framework that guides how companies manage consumer data and respect consumer preferences. The FTC has a proven track record of resolving thorny issues in ways that make things better for internet users.

But rather than extending the FTC’s existing system across the rest of the internet ecosystem, the FCC created a completely different set of rules that apply only to some of the internet.

That’s a huge problem. Consumers, innovators and businesses alike must now try to understand and cope with two differing online privacy standards.

In the Federal Communications Commission’s fanciful theory, the Federal Trade Commission’s framework governs online businesses, websites and advertisers while its own rules govern ISPs, and only ISPs. The FCC’s decision is confusing for both consumers and businesses.

Let’s say a consumer does not opt in to an ISP’s collection of information, but then continues to see targeted ads delivered by a website not subject to the same restrictions as ISPs. That will confuse consumers and could also undermine their very confidence in the internet.

The FCC’s decision to craft its own rules for only parts of the internet makes no sense in the real world.

The FCC’s rules also threaten innovation, given that they make it difficult for ISPs to provide customers with customized services and capabilities. This could have serious negative consequences for our nation’s digital economy.

If we have learned anything from previous attempts to regulate the web, it is that trying to create individual categories for changing activities fails. The marketplace is constantly evolving, and creating legal “silos” today to regulate tomorrow’s activities is a fool’s errand.

Congress was right to reject this mistake, and its action was a crucial step toward re-establishing consistent privacy requirements for the entire internet ecosystem.

As my friend and former colleague, former Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., noted last fall, the key issue in this debate isn’t whether federal rules should protect privacy, but how to do it effectively. He too has expressed grave concerns about the likely consumer confusion from the FCC’s new rules.

Few issues are more important to Americans’ everyday lives than protecting their privacy, particularly online privacy. I applaud Sen. Flake for acting to put a strong new process in motion.

Mary Bono served in Congress from 1998 to 2013. She is co-chair of the 21st Century Privacy Coalition. Follow her on Twitter, @MaryBonoUSA.