Senate Democrats Consider Legislation in Response to Verizon 'Supercookies'
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., threatened legislation following the controversy around Verizon’s “supercookies,” a type of mobile tracking technology. The use of supercookies “raises the specter of corporations being able to peek into the habits of Americans…
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without their knowledge or consent,” Nelson said in a statement Friday. “That’s why I think we need to get to the bottom of this and perhaps new legislation.” Nelson and other Senate Democrats wrote Verizon last month inquiring about the practice (see 1501300029). Friday, Nelson and Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., sent letters to the FCC and FTC asking them to scrutinize the practice. “As we consider whether legislation may be necessary to fully protect consumers from the use of these supercookies, we also believe the [FCC] should use its full existing statutory authority to examine these practices,” they told the FCC. “The use of these supercookies may implicate the Commission’s rules and policies related to consumer privacy and transparency.” They asked the FTC to “investigate Verizon’s disclosures to wireless customers with regard to its mobile tracking technology.” A Verizon spokesman said the company takes customers’ privacy seriously and it will respond to the letters. Verizon General Counsel Craig Silliman responded to the senators’ earlier inquiry to Verizon, in a Wednesday letter. “We never share information that individually identifies our customers with third parties and we give customers appropriate choices about whether and in what circumstances they will see advertising that is tailored to them,” Silliman said. “We are also sensitive to concerns raised by our customers, and we make changes to our programs to address their concerns.” The concerns followed revelations that Turn, a third-party online advertiser, was using the unique identifier headers (UIDH) of Verizon customers. “We have confirmed with all of our advertising partners that they will not use the UIDH to regenerate deleted browser cookies,” Silliman said. "Consumers expect that their private information remain just that: private,” emailed an FCC spokesman about the letter. “The Commission takes violations of consumer privacy extremely seriously. We have put in place robust rules to protect consumer privacy and regularly pursue enforcement for violations of those rules.”