Breaking down Internet privacy legislation

There may be gridlock with some tech policy issues in a Republican-led House, but Internet privacy won't be held up in the jam, Reed Smith attorneys Amy Mushahwar and Judy Harris, said.

The two privacy and communications attorneys stopped by The Post last week to break down the top issues in three bills at play in the House on Internet privacy. The debates will circle around exactly what kind of information would be defined as personally identifiable to created behavioral advertising platforms. Companies, privacy groups and lawmakers will debate how Web sites can share information with third parties (Washington Post with a restaurant advertiser, for example) and whether consumers will only have that information shared on a voluntary or involuntary basis.

"The devil will be in the details," Mushahwar said.

A Do Not Track registry, may gain traction because of the popularity of the Do Not Call registry. Companies such as Google have questioned how such a registry would be technically implemented. But the idea is popular among privacy groups and consumers, they say.

"What we saw with a Do Not Call registry is that it slowly started to replace individual states's registries," Harris said. "So I think you can imagine compromise."