In an opinion essay published in The Hill, Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, says proposed legislation aimed at protecting consumer privacy online will have a detrimental effect on the Internet as a commercial conduit by placing the burden of privacy protection on individual Web sites through a strict opt-in model. Rothenberg's opinion is directed at Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), whose proposed legislation Rothenberg has called the "Spam Preservation Act of 2010." Rothenberg argues that industry self-regulation is working and that, of the thousands of Internet-abuse consumer complaints received by the FTC during 2006-07, only one was related to privacy.
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