Washington: Microsoft on Thursday called for a broad national law to protect consumer privacy.
"This is the time, this is the place, we believe, for the government to adopt privacy legislation on a national basis," Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said.
High-tech businesses, including Microsoft, helped block attempts to pass a national privacy law in 2001 and 2002, arguing that businesses can be trusted to handle consumer profiles responsibly.
Since then, most Fortune 500 companies have developed "privacy policies" that spell out, what they do with credit-card numbers, birthdates and other information consumers give to them.
Meanwhile, Texas Republican Representative, Joe Barton, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said that he plans to introduce a comprehensive privacy bill next year.
Lawmakers are currently wrangling over legislation that would require businesses to let consumers know when their account information has been exposed to outsiders.
Still, several polls have found that privacy concerns have prompted some consumers to cut back on online purchases, and a rash of data breaches has exposed sloppy security practices at banks, universities and a wide range of other institutions.
Smith said a broad privacy law spelling out how businesses handle consumer information is now needed to shore up consumer confidence and simplify a legal landscape that is becoming cluttered by conflicting state and national laws.
Any legislation should allow consumers to limit how information about them is used and should apply to online and offline businesses equally, Smith said.
Online retailer eBay Inc. is also pushing for a national privacy law, a lobbyist for the company said, while computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. has backed such a law for years.
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