Online Privacy Under Threat…U.S. Government Approves New Video Privacy Law

By: Umair Yousuf  |   January 7th, 2013   |   Social Media

User privacy over the internet has become a highly contentious issue the world over and in another blow to privacy advocates video rental companies will now be able to share personal viewing information.

With President Barack Obama signing a new amended law just before the new year, companies providing video streaming services can now legally share their users viewing history online.

 

This comes after video streaming giant Netflix lobbied members of the US Congress hard to update the old Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) that was enacted in the 1980s, making it illegal for sharing personal data unless a warrant was obtained from the courts or the user provided express written permission.

 

Netflix’s influx of an estimated half a million dollars to lobby Congress has resulted in the new law with the company now looking to making its video streaming services more social by incorporating users Netflix accounts with their Facebook accounts, allowing sharing of viewing history with their friends.

 

Although it seems harmless, privacy advocates feel the new law is a big blow to their struggle for protecting online privacy of the people. Under the terms of the law, companies will just need to ask users permission once. If they opt out it is all well and good but if they don’t then companies such as Netflix will have access to their video history for two whole years.

 

Speaking to Readwrite.com Rainey Reitman, the Electronic Frontier Foundation‘s activism director said that the new law is ambiguous undermining the decades old “strong legal protections put in place to protect video watchers…,” for her “A major concern is that individuals will enable the function and not realize that it is continuing to broadcast their video watching habits to social networks – for years.”

 

This is a big development in the battle for protecting online privacy and those who do not wish to share all their viewing history should carefully read the fine print before allowing firms to get the rights to share their viewing history.

Source: readwrite