Elephant Stampede

I’m not saying this is exactly what it looks like in Washington right now,

but given the Republican control of the House and Senate, there are bound to be some consequences. One area that might pique the interest of the re-constituted Congress is the Federal Trade Commission’s data privacy regulation. I’ve written about this before. Congress has never specifically given the FTC regulatory power in the data privacy world, but that has not stopped the FTC from filling the vacuum. 

The FTC believes its power to regulate comes from its statutory authority to investigate unfair and deceptive trade practices. So companies that don’t abide by their privacy policies or who don’t use state of the art techniques to protect customer data have found themselves in the FTC’s cross hairs. 

Congressman Darrell Issa, who seems to head up a disproportionate number of investigations, is already on record opposing the FTC’s activity in this area. Now that the Senate has a majority of Republicans, as well as the various committee chairs, it will be interesting to see if there is any action on this topic. Stand by.