September 25, 2018                                                                                                            Contact: Jeff Chester-202-494-7100

                                                                                                                                            David Monahan 617-896-9397

For Immediate Release

Child Advocacy and Consumer Groups Tell FCC to Keep Key TV Safeguards for Children

Leading consumer privacy organizations in the United States write to express surprise and concern that not a single consumer representative was invited to testify at the September 26 Senate Commerce Committee hearing
“Examining Safeguards for Consumer Data Privacy.”

U.S. companies should adopt the same data protection rules that are poised to go into effect in the European Union on May 25, Public Citizen, the Center for Digital Democracy and Privacy International said today.

The European Union's updated data protection legislation comes into effect in Europe on May 25, 2018.  It gives individuals new rights to better control their personal information and strengthens some of the rights that already exist.  Enforcement and redress mechanisms have also been strengthened to ensure that these rights are respected.  And – importantly – the definition of personal data is wider in the GDPR than in the current EU legislation, and now includes online identifiers, such as an IP address. Read the summary of the eight rights here.

The right

In an open letter to Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckkerberg, members of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue urge the company "to confirm your company’s commitment to global compliance with the GDPR".

Internet service provider (ISP) giants, which dominant how Americans gain access to broadband Internet, cable TV, streaming video, and other telecommunications services, are aggressively expanding their capabilities to gather and use personal data. Leading ISPs AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are taking full advantage of all information flowing from PC’s, mobile phones, set-top boxes, and other devices.

CCTV Center for Media and Democracy presents a public talk and call to action with Jeff Chester, Center for Digital Democracy.

Haystaq DNA brings predictive analytics to election races up and down the ballot everywhere from presidential to city council elections. Haystaq provides support to political campaigns in need of using voter file data along with custom turnout scors, candidate support, issue scores and fundraising scores to reach voters most efficiently using a myriad of marketing tactics. 

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Google's DoubleClick team October 2017 Opt-Ed piece: 

I believe that the future of TV is one that’s smarter — that brings together the TV content you love with the seamless experience of digital — on every screen or surface. Building towards that future, at our Partner Leadership Summit in Chicago early this month, we announced several new products and features to DoubleClick for Publishers, made for our TV.