A Republican senator is proposing a bill to give Internet users a single-click button on their browsers to turn off online data tracking, The Washington Free Beacon reported.
"Big tech companies collect incredible amounts of deeply personal, private data from people without giving them the option to meaningfully consent," Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told the Free Beason. "They have gotten incredibly rich by employing creepy surveillance tactics on their users, but too often the extent of this data extraction is only known after a tech company irresponsibly handles the data and leaks it all over the Internet.
"The American people didn't sign up for this, so I'm introducing this legislation to finally give them control over their personal information online."
The brower selector would be the equivalent of the "Do Not Call" list for phone scammers. The proposal includes "strict penalties" on companies violating the data to profile users who select the Do Not Track option on their browser. Also, it would ban companies from discriminating against Do Not Track users.
"You don't allow consumers to stop your tracking of them," Sen. Hawley told Google at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this year, per the report. "You tell them that you do, you would anticipate that they do, a consumer would have a reasonable expectation based on what you've told them that they're not being tracked, but in fact you're still tracking it.
"Americans have not signed up for this. They think that the products that you're offering them are free — they're not free. They think that they can opt out of the tracking that you're performing — they can't meaningfully opt out."
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