House updates 1988 privacy law to allow online sharing of Netflix choices

[DainBramaged]

The House of Representatives on Tuesday easily passed legislation that updates video privacy laws to make it easier for online rental services such as Netflix to share information about customers' viewing habits with user consent. Current law requires written consent to share video records, but the new law would allow companies to obtain consent over the web. The two-page bill needs to be approved by the Senate before it becomes law.

The United States affords unusually strict privacy protections to video rental records. During the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, an enterprising reporter obtained copies of Bork's video rental records. Bork's video rentals were innocuous, but the incident spooked Congress enough to pass the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act, which required written consent from consumers before video rental records could be shared.

Two decades later, that rule continues to apply to Internet-based video rental services such as Netflix. Netflix and Facebook have been pushing to change the law because they want to give users the option to share information about their Netflix viewing habits with their friends on Facebook.

The problem is that since Netflix customers don't walk into brick-and-mortar Netflix stores to get their videos, Netflix never has a chance to ask users to sign a paper consent form. Also, current law requires the user to separately consent to each disclosure, which some users might find annoying.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/house-u...

[saras]

1. Users can already share their information on Facebook. No change in the law is needed.

The change in the law is needed so that Netflix can "share" the information with who THEY want to, not just your facebook friends.

[mwooldri]

2. A no brainer law change. If I want to allow Netflix to share...

... then by heck I should have that right to give them permission to do so.

Can they get into some real meaningful stuff like ... keeping free speech (SOPA + Protect-IP - need to modify these bills) andmaybe promote the creation of a job or two here and there - without using slave labour (prisoners in Alabama for farmwork now...)