Privacy, Safety, and Protection of Consumer Choice Headline NetChoice's iAWESOME List

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- For more than six years, NetChoice has highlighted the state and federal bills that most egregiously limit competition, innovation, and consumer choice with the iAWFUL (Internet Advocates Watch List for Ugly Laws).

But there are also lawmakers and governors who truly "get it." Many across the country are working to ensure that government fosters online innovation and job growth.  They don't fear changes to the status quo and are willing to stand up to entrenched industries demanding that lawmakers protect their turf -- at the expense of consumers.

We think these leaders deserve their due.  So, as lawmakers prepare to get back to the work after a summer break, we felt it was appropriate to recognize them with the iAWESOME.  The iAWESOME List highlights lawmakers who have drafted forward-thinking legislation and those who risked political backlash to kill legislation that would have protected the old and staid instead of fostering consumer-benefitting innovations.

Over the past six months, significant work has been done to:

• Enable the safe and effective use of ridesharing services that have grown so popular from coast-to-coast.
• Protect the privacy decisions consumers make before they die.
• Ensure that online marketplaces can still be a significant growth engine for our nation's small businesses.
• Preserve the ability for law enforcement to protect citizen's public safety AND personal privacy.
• Prevent a new tax on travelers and tourists.
• Refuse to accept a new internet tax regime that would empower state tax collectors to audit any businesses anywhere in the country.

So, let's take a look at the best work that lawmakers have done so far this year.  Additional details about each iAWESOME bill/action can be found at iAWESOME.org

Standing Up to the Taxicab Monopoly

(Arizona HB2135) (Arkansas SB800) (Georgia HB190) (Indiana HB1278) (Louisiana SB172) (Maine HB1379) (Maryland SB868) (Minnesota SF1679) (Nebraska LB629)  (Nevada AB176) (North Dakota HB1144) (Oklahoma HB1614) (Tennessee HB992/SB907) (Texas HB1733) (Utah SB294) (Virginia HB1662/SB1025) (Washington SB5550) (Wisconsin AB143)

Lawmakers across the country have given deference to the demands of constituents for ride sharing services.  This past year over a dozen legislatures passed laws striking a balance between innovation, safety, and insurance concerns. 

Of course these laws would not move if not for the convictions of the bill's sponsors.

In addition, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stood up to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to protect the growth of ridesharing in New York City.

Around the country, innovative consumer-empowering tools are colliding with regulatory regimes created long before the Internet.  Laws originally designed to protect consumers that are now being used to stifle new technologies that help consumers.  This is certainly the situation facing the ride-sharing revolution of Lyft, Uber, and Sidecar.

While some see the introduction of ridesharing as a threat, consumers across the country have welcomed it as an alternative to driving and while other constituents welcomed it as an opportunity to increase household income. 

Ensuring that Privacy Doesn't End at Death
(California AB691) (Virginia SB1450)

Legislators in California and Virginia sought a new approach to handling afterlife estates.  An approach that starts with privacy but still enables fiduciaries to wrap-up an estate – the Privacy Expectation Afterlife and Choices Act (PEAC) Act.

What happens to your online accounts, messages, and photos after you die? Would you want an estate manager to have access to everything even if you never gave them permission? That's exactly what estate attorneys are seeking with legislation in several states that would open up your online accounts after you die, whether you approved or not.

That's not what Americans want: More than 70 percent of Americans think that their private online communications and photos should remain private after they die – unless they gave prior consent for others to access. In addition, 70 percent also felt that the law should default to privacy when someone dies without documenting their preference about how to handle their private communications and photos.

More info at PrivacyAfterlife.com

Defending New York's Online Marketplaces
Governor Cuomo and Assemblymembers Barrett, Hevesi, Lentol, Quart, Schimminger, Simon, and the entire Brooklyn Delegation of the Assembly excised a new tax buried deep within the budget – a new tax that placed New York's small and large online marketplaces in the crosshairs.

This new tax would have required New York-based marketplaces to remit sales tax for any transactions involving New York buyers, even when the seller lives outside of New York.  And since this new tax and its burdens only fall on New York marketplaces, it encourages sellers to use a non-New York marketplace like Alibaba, Buy.com, iCraft.com, Bonanza.com, Shoply.com, Zibbet.com, and many more. 

Currently, businesses that sell through online marketplaces must comply with their local tax laws, and the platform is not responsible for sales tax on behalf of its sellers. This new tax mandate would have created a significant barrier to attracting new jobs and investment to New York, since it would discourage the growing array of online marketplaces from creating any presence in the state.

Since marketplaces are not anxious to add new tax obligations for every seller used by customers in New York, they would refrain from hiring any employees or investing in New York.  In essence this new tax would have: reduced technology investment and job growth in New York, stifled the New York startup community, penalized large New York employers, created new risks, regulations and liabilities, and set a dangerous precedent for New York businesses transacting with consumers in other states.

We think it's awesome that the Governor and these Assemblymen chose a future where New York innovation flourishes rather than sacrificing it for minimal tax revenue.

More at NetChoice.org/NYTax

Governor McAuliffe Stands Up to State Legislature to Protect Public Safety
New bills limiting police photos of publicly visible license plates would impair law enforcement investigations that save lives and solve crimes.

License plate reader (LPR) data captured and used by both law enforcement and private entities is solving crimes and saving money. Financial services and insurance companies use LPR data to recover both stolen cars and automobiles with delinquent loans.  LPR is used to enforce payment for parking garages and tollbooths.  And you're seeing more LPR cameras monitoring vehicles entering private neighborhoods and high-security sites such as airports, train stations, water treatment facilities, and power plants.

But legislation based on misinformation campaign is placing the ability for LPRs to serve the public good in peril.  Moreover, it brings into question a tenant of First Amendment protections – the right to take pictures in public.

Virginia's Senate Bill 965 and House Bill 1673 would have placed extreme limits on the ability of Virginia law enforcement to use all the tools available to serve and protect Virginians.  But Gov. Terry McAuliffe stepped in to veto this legislation and preserved the ability for Virginia law enforcement to solve crimes and save lives. 

More info at NetChoice.org/LPRFacts

Governor Hogan Puts Kibosh on New Travel Taxes
Cities and states favor hotel taxes since they fall mostly on visitors – not on resident voters. But under Maryland's SB 190, this approach would backfire since the new service tax would be paid only by Maryland citizens – not by travelers from out-of-state. And the tax would only impact Maryland businesses like wedding and convention planners.

And it would allow tax collectors new powers to tax all the components of a travel package put together by travel agents for tourists and church groups.  Imagine the new costs of travel when a 15% occupancy tax gets applied to all kinds of goods and services when included in travel packages:

• taxi from the airport to the hotel
• food served at a hotel restaurant
• tickets to the Maryland Science Center
• guided tour of the Inner Harbor
• wine tastings

This certainly makes a trip to historic Annapolis much less appealing.

Fortunately, Governor Hogan saw past the illusory revenue to the real harms imposed by this new tax – new taxes on Maryland travelers and new burdens on Maryland travel agents. 

Chairman Goodlatte Stops Overly Burdensome Internet Sales Tax
Tax collectors and big box retailers continue trying to jam through Congress a law that would force all businesses to collect sales tax for what could be 10,000 local jurisdictions, and file returns with 46 states. Not willing to unleash state tax collectors on every American business, House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte published common-sense principles for any Congressional action on remote sales taxes.  The Chairman remains opposed to legislation like the Marketplace Fairness Act, since they fail to meet any of the Committee's principles and won't actually simplify sales tax collection. 

At the same time, Goodlatte has drafted alternative legislation that would meet the principles, level the playing field, and deliver new tax revenue to the states.  His concept is simple, since it allows online and catalog sellers to follow the tax rates and rules of where they are located – just like brick-and-mortar retailers have to do.

More info at NetChoice.org/OnlineTaxSolution

About NetChoice
NetChoice is a trade association of online businesses and consumers who share the goal of promoting convenience, choice, and commerce on the net.

SOURCE NetChoice