“Privacy law in the U.S. is weaker than in most places,” writes the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Justin Brookman, adding, “but hey, at least we’ve got Section 5.” Though it’s based on a law now 100 years old, he notes, it also acts as a baseline, of sorts, preventing consumer deception. “Recently, however,” Brookman writes, “even this weak standard has been called into question—by two sitting commissioners of the FTC, no less. Commissioners Maureen Ohlhausen and Joshua Wright have both indicated that the FTC shouldn’t bring deceptive practices cases against companies absent some objective assessment of consumer harm.” Brookman examines this recent development and describes why such an argument is “an extremely dangerous idea” in this post for Privacy Perspectives.
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