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| Photo Credit: AP. |
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — One of the strictest internet privacy laws in the United States has withstood a legal challenge, as a group of telecommunication providers has dropped its bid to overturn the Maine standard.
Maine
created one of the toughest rules in the nation for internet service providers
in 2020 when it began enforcing an “opt-in” web privacy standard. The law stops
the service providers from using, disclosing, selling or providing access to
customers’ personal information without permission.
Industry
associations swiftly sued with a claim that the new law violated their First
Amendment rights. A federal judge rejected that challenge, but legal wrangling
continued.
The groups,
which include the country’s biggest telecommunications providers, filed to
dismiss the lawsuit on Sept. 2, said Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey. Frey
said the state’s privacy law held up despite the efforts of an “army of
industry lawyers organized against us,” and now other states can follow Maine’s
lead.
“Maine’s
Legislature wisely sought to protect Maine residents by restricting the
disclosure and use of their most private and personal information,” Frey said.
The Maine
Legislature passed the bill, proposed by former Democratic state Sen. Shenna
Bellows, who is now Maine’s secretary of state, in 2019. Internet service
providers then sued in February 2020, and attorneys for Maine have been in
court defending the law since. The proposal stemmed from a Maine effort to
bring back rules implemented during President Barack Obama’s tenure that were
repealed by Congress during President Donald Trump’s term.
Industry
plaintiffs agreed to reimburse Maine for more than $55,000 in costs incurred
defending the law, Frey said.
Supporters
of Maine’s law include the ACLU of Maine, which filed court papers in the case
in favor of keeping the law on the books. The ACLU said in court papers that
the law was “narrowly drawn to directly advance Maine’s substantial interests
in protecting consumers’ privacy, freedom of expression, and security.”
Democratic
Gov. Janet Mills has also defended the law as “common sense.”
Maine is
also the home of another privacy law that regulates the use of facial
recognition technology. That law, which came on the books last year, has also
been cited as the strictest of its kind in the U.S.