The bill would essentially strip away some of the Federal Trade Commission's power

Apparently, the bill has more than a few loopholes giving firms that'd rather not comply a way to opt out without consequence. Fun. This takes place in a few ways: granting the right for "industries to develop their own privacy standards," and giving start-ups a year-and-a-half wherein they're free from any punishment for wrongdoings regarding privacy. What's more, AP notes that the bill would essentially strip away some of the Federal Trade Commission's power and it wouldn't have any rule-making authority in matters because those "privacy codes of conduct" would be drafted not by the FTC, but companies themselves. So, say a company like Google could draft its own set of standards to follow that'd undoubtedly be to its own benefit, but unless it violated any of those rules, the government agency that works to protect consumer privacy would have its hands tied.

When you look at the massive swell of (mostly) support for yesterday's net neutrality rulings, it's easy to understand why the Obama administration would rather sweep this under the rug. If you believe the critics, however, then this bill might not make it far because it needs a congressional sponsor -- something The New York Times reports is unlikely to happen. From the looks of it, let's hope they're right.

[Image credit: AFP/Getty Images]