Location, Privacy a Two-Lane Street  Sun, 06/26/2011 - 9:46pm
Andrew Berg  If 20 years ago, you'd have said that Al Franken
(D-Minn.) would be drafting location-privacy legislation from
his position as Senator of the State of Minnesota, you'd
probably have gotten a more robust laugh than did some of
Franken's skits on Saturday Night Live.  But that's exactly what
Franken is up to these days. On June 16, he and co-sponsor Sen.
Richard Blumenthal, (D-Conn.), introduced the Location Privacy
Protection Act of 2011, a bill designed to give users more
control over the data generated by their mobile phones by
closing some of the loopholes in the existing Electronic
Communications Privacy Act (ECPA).  More specifically, Franken
hopes to make it harder for OEMs, carriers and application
developers to share their customers' information with third
parties, while also curtailing the practice of stalking by
technological means.  In a one-page summary of the proposed
bill, Franken explains the gaping hole in existing legis