Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.),
chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said Thursday he would hold a
hearing on consumer protection and privacy. "This committee has
investigated this in the past, and it is appropriate to review it again,"
he said in announcing the hearing.
That comes in the wake of revelations about glitches in
Apple's geolocation tracking regime that drew ire and fire from various
lawmakers. Apple has since defended the practices but acknowledged some
bugs that will be worked out and said it had fallen down on the
consumer-education end.
"The May hearing on mobile privacy is the Commerce
Committee's sixth hearing on consumer privacy in the past year," the
committee said in announcing the hearing, but with no date yet attached.
"The Committee has a long history of considering and moving privacy
legislation, including the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and
the CAN-SPAM Act."
The emphasis on that history comes in the wake of a bit of a
turf skirmish between Commerce and the newly created Judiciary privacy
subcommittee over jurisdiction over online privacy.
The subcommittee, headed by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), has scheduled its own
mobile privacy hearing for May 10.
