Internet service providers drop challenge to Maine’s ‘opt-in’ privacy law

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — One of many strictest web privateness legal guidelines in america has withstood a authorized problem, as a gaggle of telecommunication suppliers has dropped its bid to overturn the Maine customary.

Maine created one of many hardest guidelines within the nation for web service suppliers in 2020 when it started implementing an “opt-in” internet privateness customary. The regulation stops the service suppliers from utilizing, disclosing, promoting or offering entry to prospects’ private info with out permission.

Business associations swiftly sued with a declare that the brand new regulation violated their First Modification rights. A federal decide rejected that problem, however authorized wrangling continued.

The teams, which embody the nation’s largest telecommunications suppliers, filed to dismiss the lawsuit on Sept. 2, mentioned Maine Legal professional Normal Aaron Frey. Frey mentioned the state’s privateness regulation held up regardless of the efforts of an “military of business attorneys organized in opposition to us,” and now different states can observe Maine’s lead.

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“Maine’s Legislature properly sought to guard Maine residents by proscribing the disclosure and use of their most personal and private info,” Frey mentioned.

The Maine Legislature handed the invoice, proposed by former Democratic state Sen. Shenna Bellows, who’s now Maine’s secretary of state, in 2019. Web service suppliers then sued in February 2020, and attorneys for Maine have been in courtroom defending the regulation since. The proposal stemmed from a Maine effort to convey again guidelines applied throughout President Barack Obama’s tenure that have been repealed by Congress throughout President Donald Trump’s time period.

Business plaintiffs agreed to reimburse Maine for greater than $55,000 in prices incurred defending the regulation, Frey mentioned.

Supporters of Maine’s regulation embody the ACLU of Maine, which filed courtroom papers within the case in favor of protecting the regulation on the books. The ACLU mentioned in courtroom papers that the regulation was “narrowly drawn to instantly advance Maine’s substantial pursuits in defending customers’ privateness, freedom of expression, and safety.”

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has additionally defended the regulation as “widespread sense.”

Maine can be the house of one other privateness regulation that regulates the usage of facial recognition know-how. That regulation, which got here on the books final yr, has additionally been cited as the strictest of its type within the U.S.