Netflix to Offer Social Network Integration Following Enactment of VPPA Update
Congress approved a bill last week to permit online video users to share their consumption habits over social networking sites. On Thursday night, the Senate cleared the House-passed HR-6671, which modernizes the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), a 1988 bill which prohibits video service providers from sharing consumer video viewing practices on an ongoing basis with third parties. The videotape-era law has prevented video streaming companies like Netflix and Hulu from allowing their users to engage in frictionless sharing -- or sharing that requires one-time informed, written consent -- with social media sites like Facebook. A Netflix spokesman said Friday that once the president signs the bill the company will introduce new social features for its U.S. members in 2013 that give consumers “more freedom to share with friends when they want.”
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
The bill’s passage is a small victory for its author, incoming House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who worked to advance it as chairman of the House IP Subcommittee earlier this year. Goodlatte said in a news release last week the bill “preserves careful protections for consumers’ privacy while modernizing the law to empower consumers to do more with their video consumption preferences.” The bill differs from HR-2471, an earlier House-passed version, in two respects: The legislation forces companies to give consumers the “clear and conspicuous” option to withdraw their consent to share at any time, and a consumer’s consent to share video-watching habits expires after 24 months, unless the consumer again chooses to opt in.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., also commended the bill’s passage. His office said in a news release Friday it will set the stage for Congress to “take up other privacy matters next year including an update of the Electronic Communication[s] Privacy Act” (ECPA). Last month, the committee successfully passed an earlier draft of the legislation which included a Leahy amendment to update ECPA, though members acknowledged the provision was unlikely to pass both chambers of Congress this session (CD Nov 30 p8). Leahy said he was concerned about the “growing and unwelcome government intrusions into our private lives in cyberspace,” and said he looks forward to working with Goodlatte to enact ECPA reform in the next Congress. Leahy said his proposed ECPA updates would “revive and enhance the privacy protections afforded to Americans’ emails and other electronic communications by establishing a warrant requirement for all email content when stored with a third-party service provider or ‘in the cloud.'"
Privacy groups were mildly pleased with the passage of the bill, though American Civil Liberties Union Legislative Counsel Chris Calabrese told us updates to communications law “should not happen in piecemeal form.” The final bill was “substantially improved” from the House version, he said, “but I still would have preferred it to be passed along with an ECPA update.” Calabrese said he’s “hopeful” that Congress will take up ECPA reform in the next session: “We made a lot of good progress in the [November Senate] Judiciary markup and Goodlatte is open to ECPA reform."
The bill modernizes the VPPA while keeping its privacy protections intact by providing consumers with informed choice and clear options, said Christopher Wolf, co-chair of the Future of Privacy Forum, in an email statement. “The explicit opt-in requirement for social sharing, and the requirement for prominent notice of the ability to end sharing, as well as the limited duration of the social sharing all are consistent with the modern approach to privacy protection -- giving prominent notice and choice,” he said. Other privacy advocates were less enthused. “The bill improved somewhat in the Senate but overall it is a step backward for online privacy,” said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “Users should be able to decide on a case-by-case basis which information to reveal to others.”
The VPPA originally passed Congress after a Washington newspaper reporter acquired a copy of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s videotape rental records and wrote about his viewing choices. Bork died last week at the age of 85.