The group claims that privacy legislation, such as the UK’s Data Protection Act, would cost US consumers billions of dollars annually. Earlier this month, an OPA advisor called for Congress to “focus on the way technology is used rather than trying to pass laws governing specific technologies.”
"It’s the behavior of businesses and not the technologies they use that determine whether consumer privacy is respected," said Christine Varney, an advisor to the OPA and a former Federal Trade Commissioner. "There are practices that enhance privacy and practices that invade privacy, but technology itself is neutral."
There are numerous privacy bills in Congress, but they have made little progress. The include the Online Privacy Protection Act, which, if passed, would allow consumers to access their personal data (as the Data Protection Act allows in the US), and the Internet Integrity and Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, which would make it an offence to fraudulently access personal information.
The on-line edition of the Wall Street Journal reports that the OPA, whose members include industry giants Microsoft, AOL Time Warnet, IBM, AT&T and Sun Microsystems, is this week attacking legislative proposals on three fronts:
According to the Wall Street Journal, reports published on Monday by the OPA claim that proposals to limit companies from sharing or selling customer information without permission would cost 90 of the largest US financial institutions $17 billion annually in added expensive. They also suggest that consumers would face a $1 billion annual “information tax” in higher product costs.