FCC Privacy Rules 'Copy and Paste' Regulation, AEI Scholar Says

The FCC privacy NPRM is cut-and-paste regulation, said Roslyn Layton, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in a blog post Monday. “There is so much regulation on the books today that federal agencies can essentially copy-paste content from one commission to another, making duplicate regulatory regimes for different industries.” The FCC did exactly that in its “mind-numbing, 147-page-long” privacy NPRM, borrowing rules from the FTC, she said. By copying the FTC rules and applying them to just ISPs, “the FCC effectively insulates established Internet companies from competition by creating new barriers to entry in concentrated advertising markets,” she said. “As is par for the course with this FCC, the commission failed to provide evidence of consumer complaints and did not conduct an investigation to see whether abuse is actually occurring.” The NPRM said the rules were built on authority granted in many sections of the Telecom Act (see 1604040032).