Maybe he wanted to discredit long-standing Internet lore which casts his family as Grand Wizards of the Illuminati; or maybe he’s just genuinely concerned with the current state of online anonymity; either way, John D. Rockefeller’s (D-WV) “Do-Not-Track Online Act of 2011″, which was submitted for review on May 9, has privacy stalwarts saluting the Senator from West Virginia.

Online privacy is a hot legal issue. Since the beginning of the current congressional term, Senators and Congressmen have been introducing nuanced versions of various online privacy acts in the hopes that their solution will be the one to emerge victorious from the hopper.

“Companies have too much freedom to collect user data on the Internet,” admonished Rockefeller, “consumers [need] the ability to block Internet companies from tracking their [online] activity.”

The Consumers Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Consumer Action Center for Digital Commerce and American Civil Liberties Union all agree with Rockefeller and are enthusiastically endorsing his proposal. Citing Rockefeller’s inclusion of a browser-based do not track mechanism, Chris Calabrese, ACLU legislative counsel, said that Rockefeller’s bill provided “crucial civil liberties protection for the 21st century.”

Online marketing lobbyists are working overtime to blandish representative support. Do not track opponents insist that costly federal sanctions would do nothing more than impede innovation, clog up court rooms, and create barriers to entry for the online marketing world.

Sens. John McCain and John Kerry recently submitted a well-received, bi-partisan online privacy bill; but, consumer rights advocates and privacy groups were cautious in their praise. Naysayers were leery that the Kerry-McCain bill did not directly address “do not track” and gave the Commerce Department an unreasonable amount of power. Rockefeller’s offering will give the Federal Trade Commission—not the Commerce Department—one year to draft and finalize online privacy rules and consequences.

Another quirk of the Kerry-McCain bill: it requires users to opt-out of data collection on a per site basis. If you think pop-ups are annoying now, imagine how many there would be if every site you visited first had to ask for tracking permission before you could proceed!?

While Rockefeller’s proposal is currently the darling among privacy proponents, the Kerry-McCain bill has not lost legislative steam. Considered complimentary, The Hill, a Congressional newspaper, reports that discussions are expected to commence about merging the Rockefeller and Kerry-McCain propositions.

In a candid moment, Sen. Kerry alluded that initial support for his bill would have been stymied if it included a universal do not track provision.

The last two administrations—Clinton’s and Bush’s—worked hard to pass a universal online privacy law; but neither succeeded. Will the Obama White House be the team that gets it done? Time will tell.

Congressional and Senatorial comments are expected to come in over the next several months, so if privacy is a personal priority, bookmark our blog to keep abreast of the situation (No! Not that situation).

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