Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other Internet companies and e-mail providers will be prohibited from making legally binding promises to protect your privacy, thanks to a vote this afternoon in the U.S. House of Representatives.<\/p>\n
By a 5-8 vote, the House Rules committee rejected a bipartisan fix to the CISPA data-sharing bill that would have ensured companies\u2019 privacy promises \u2014 including their terms of use and privacy policies \u2014 remained valid and legally enforceable in the future.<\/p>\n
The vote came after Rep. Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican who\u2019s the committee\u2019s influential chairman, urged his colleagues to vote against the amendment (PDF). All of the committee\u2019s eight GOP members voted against the amendment, and all the Democrats supported it. (See CNET\u2019s CISPA FAQ.)<\/p>\n
It also came hours after a formal veto threat from the Obama administration, citing privacy and other concerns about CISPA. A House floor debate is scheduled to begin tomorrow, which now will not include a vote on the amendment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re disappointed that such a commonsense reform won\u2019t even get a vote,\u201d Will Adams, a spokesman for Rep. Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican who co-sponsored the amendment, told CNET this evening. \u201cWhen Americans sign up for service with their phone company or their Internet provider they should be entitled to the privacy protections that the companies promise them. Giving companies legal cover to break their contracts with consumers is bad policy and a disservice to the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Congress should have been able to debate the amendment this week because it would ensure Americans\u2019 privacy rights, said Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat and former Internet entrepreneur. That includes, he said, the rights of \u201cusers who have given their information to the company under the explicit assurance of the terms of use that it wouldn\u2019t be shared.\u201d<\/p>\n
Otherwise, Polis said, CISPA means Internet and other companies will be \u201ccompletely exonerated from any risk of liability\u201d if they open their databases with confidential customer information to the feds and even private-sector firms.<\/p>\n
The amendment was only six lines long. It would have altered the latest version of CISPA (PDF) by saying the legislation does not authorize a company \u201cto breach a contract with any other party,\u201d including a terms of service agreement.<\/p>\n
If it had been adopted during the floor debate, it would have allowed e-mail providers, social networks, and other companies to pledge not to share customers\u2019 confidential information with the National Security Agency, Homeland Security, or any other organization under CISPA \u2014 and made that pledge legally enforceable in court.<\/p>\n
CISPA is controversial because it overrules all existing federal and state laws by saying \u201cnotwithstanding any other provision of law,\u201d including a privacy policy or terms of service agreement, companies may share certain confidential customer information \u201cwith any other entity, including the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n