Privacy Debates Returns to Capitol Hill this Week
After a bit of a hiatus from the privacy debate, the Senate Commerce Committee is scheduled to revisit the issue this week with a high profile hearing on the need for privacy legislation to provide additional consumer protections, featuring witnesses from the Department of Commerce and Federal Trade Commission to talk about their recent privacy reports. With the clock ticking fast in an election year, and a Republican-led House that doesn’t share the White House and Senate leadership’s desire to pass a “Privacy Bill of Rights,” it doesn’t appear that the hearing will lead to legislation this year. However, the discussion should prove insightful as a comparison of the two similar, but not identical, perspectives on privacy within the Administration.

Senate Cyber Legislation Still Undergoing Changes, Possible Impasse Ahead
Keeping with the goal for the Senate to pass comprehensive cybersecurity legislation this month, Senate Leaders are still exploring tweaks to the Lieberman-Collins Cybersecurity Act (S. 2105) to gain more support. Two of the key issues preventing sufficient Republican support include the proposal’s tougher privacy protections and authorization for DHS to set mandatory security standards for critical infrastructure.

Should the Senate be able to pass this legislation, signs continue to point to a possible impasse: The White House and Senate Democratic leaders have reiterated that the House-passed legislation (CISPA) lacks adequate privacy protections and would fail to protect critical infrastructure, and House Republican leadership has vowed to block consideration of any legislation that creates new cybersecurity mandates. Of course, there is also strong support in the Senate for data breach legislation to be part of the package, and a host of other issues not central to the debate. Stay tuned.

ICANN Announces Windfall of Applications and Fees
ICANN announced last week that 2,091 new gTLD applications had been submitted or were “in process” when ICANN shut down the application system April 12 (the last day for submissions) due to security concerns. It stated it had received approximately $350 million in corresponding application fees. Given that ICANN has stated it will process only 500 applications at a time, it is now a certainty, rather than speculation, that many applications will NOT be evaluated in this first application round (and thus likely would not be evaluated for several years).

SIIA is working with other intellectual property stakeholders in urging ICANN to reconsider its technically complex “digital archery” method for prioritizing applications, and instead to batch them based upon self-election and, if necessary, category (such as community or non-Latin character applications first). ICANN’s TAS application system is still shut down due to the security glitch, and it appears that the new gTLD applications will not be published until well into the summer.

For SIIA policy updates including upcoming events, news and analysis, subscribe to SIIA’s weekly policy email newsletter, Digital Policy Roundup.

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.

House Passes Four Key Measures during “Cyber Week”
Last week, the House passed four key measures as part of “cyber week.” Most notably, the Cybersecurity Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA, H.R. 3523) passed Thursday night by a vote of 248-168. Of the supporting 248, 42 Democrats were in favor and 28 Republicans against. This was a strong vote and a big victory for SIIA and many of our members that were leading supporters down the stretch. In response to the bill’s passage, SIIA released a statement of support.

The CISPA vote was followed by a unanimous voice vote on HR 4257, widely supported legislation to reform the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), and the House concluded activities on Friday by passing the two cyber R&D measures: H.R. 2096 – Cybersecurity Enhancement Act, and H.R. 3834 – Advancing America’s Networking and IT R&D Act without significant opposition. Cybersecurity now shifts back to the Senate, where Maj. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) would like to have the Lieberman-Collins comprehensive Cybersecurity Act (S. 2105) on the floor this month.

FTC is Latest to Explore Mobile Payment Issues
The FTC looked at mobile payments last Thursday, an event that capped several weeks of intense attention to this innovative new technology by policymakers. In March the Senate Banking Committee held hearings. And the Internet Caucus held a Congressional briefing, which SIIA’s Mark MacCarthy chaired. The major issues noted at the FTC’s workshop were privacy, security and consumer redress. While no new regulation or legislation was proposed, it was clear that policy makers expect mobile payment providers to provide adequate protections in these areas. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse Blog.

House Judiciary Panel Hears Intl. Patent Issues
On April 26, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property held a hearing on “International Patent Issues: Promoting a Level Playing Field for American Industry Abroad.” Witnesses from Pfizer, Qualcomm, American Continental Group, and Nebraska College of Law testified on their views of “threats” to procuring and exploiting patent rights internationally.

Among the key topics discussed were the upcoming Special 301 list from USTR, compulsory licenses in many mid- and low-income foreign countries, exclusions from patentability that may violate TRIPs (such as second uses, business methods, certain biological materials and uses, etc.), under-resourced patent offices, weak judicial enforcement, subsidies for local manufacturers (over non-local or “non manufacturing” entities), and the possible, perceived narrowing of patentable subject matter in the United States–which almost certainly would have international implications.

For SIIA policy updates including upcoming events, news and analysis, subscribe to SIIA’s weekly policy email newsletter, Digital Policy Roundup.

David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.