On Thursday, July 14, 2011 two Subcommittees of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade and Communications and Technology) will hold a joint hearing entitled “Internet Privacy:  The Views of the FTC, the FCC, and NTIA.”  The hearing, which is the first in a series of anticipated dialogues aimed at examining how information is collected, protected, and utilized in the online ecosystem, will feature witness testimony from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, FTC Commissioner Edith Ramirez, and NTIA Assistant Secretary Lawrence Strickling.  These federal regulators were called to testify about existing federal laws and practices to protect online consumer privacy and are expected to provide an overview of the existing federal privacy framework and help identify key issues to address.

On March 16, 2011, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz and Strickling testified in a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on “The State of Online Consumer Privacy.”  As we wrote about here, Strickling made news at the last hearing by stating that Obama administration supports comprehensive privacy legislation, which represented a shift in Administration policy.  Given the topic of this week’s hearing, we would expect Strickling to discuss the Administration’s position in the context of the current federal framework.

Check back after Thursday’s hearing for Inside Privacy’s summary and analysis of the discussion.