USTelecom, NCTA, Charter Urge FTC to Set ‘Uniform’ Online Standards

The Internet Association backed flexible regulation promoting both consumer protection and tech innovation. IA told the FTC to consider the “overwhelmingly positive benefits” from companies like Facebook and Google -- two of IA's members -- and “the important role that fair and reasonable policies play in fostering continued innovation and corresponding benefits.”

The News Media Alliance urged the agency to target big tech market dominance to preserve the news industry, which it called “vital” to a functioning democracy. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation argued against FTC “expanding the scope of antitrust review to incorporate how companies collect and use data.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said the FTC “must update its insufficient enforcement efforts to prevent anti-competitive practices,” and questioned whether agency merger review policies are “sufficiently aggressive.” The FTC “must keep pace with the digital economy to protect American consumers and workers from harmful business practices and abuses,” he said.

USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter said his members are optimistic the agency will develop “uniform protections for all consumers online.” NCTA argued for “a uniform approach to privacy and data security” and said the agency “should enable consumers to enjoy transparency, choice, and security with respect to how their privacy and data is handled.” Charter also backed a “uniform” set of rules, with “focus on the core principles of consumer control and meaningful consent, transparency, parity, uniformity and security.”

Tech’s dominance makes it “extremely difficult” for media outlets to build “sustainable digital business models,” the News Media Alliance said, saying platforms achieved dominance with “assistance of serial acquisitions and exclusionary conduct aimed at nascent competitors and technologies that threaten to supplant their positions.” Google and Facebook account for more than 80 percent of referrals to digital news publications, said CEO David Chavern.

​​​​​​​ITIF said there's little evidence that giving users more privacy gives a platform a competitive advantage -- as seen in the lack of competitive services tailored to privacy concerns. “Consumers generally have a lax attitude toward privacy; they say they want more of it, but they voluntarily share a lot of personal information online and generally do not support websites that cost even a little more,” ITIF said. Big data, specifically personal information, is increasingly vital to “some of the economy’s most important innovations, including online platforms, medical diagnoses, digital assistants, language translation, urban planning, and public safety,” ITIF said.

The FTC should use antitrust tools to protect consumer privacy where it can, but the agency also should champion comprehensive privacy legislation “to truly protect consumers’ privacy in the digital age,” Public Knowledge said: “The nexus between accumulated personal information and the dominance of internet platforms is properly within the scope of antitrust review, and antitrust enforcement to remedy anticompetitive uses of personal information can, and should, also strive to maximize consumer welfare in privacy.”

Center for Digital Democracy filed joint comments​​​​​​​ with Berkeley Media Studies Group and Color of Change, urging the commission to include the welfare and privacy of children and teens as a discussion topic: “An FTC proceeding on competition and consumer welfare must include a hearing on youth, including how effectively the FTC enforces” the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.