You left out the part about Netflix requiring your consent.

As I understand it, as it is, music services can tell your friends what you're listening to, and you can see what they're listening to. Some people like this, some don't, but you can choose to share or not share the info. But due to the video privacy laws, services like Netflix cannot do the same thing, i.e. let people choose to share their movie viewing info, due to the application of a law that was written for different times and circumstances. If some people want to share this info, should the government be preventing it?

Being required to opt out of such arrangements is very much different than when you give consent. Most people never take the time to read the lengthy and confusing fine print associated with terms of service agreements, and most invariably they give permission to collect and share your information unless you specifically opt out.

The new amendment doesn't require your consent.
This new amendment will allow Netflix to SELL your viewing habits
to anyone it wants, without your consent.
Once out of Netflix hands, who will the third party then release it to.

disclosing your viewing history. WE WANT this amendment.

Fascists don't want it. Repubs have forgotten to be insane this time.

The new amendment doesn't.

Poor grammar on the part of the writers (or maybe it was the website that
dropped a comma or two, to make it more readable).

I had to read it multiple times to understand what they were saying as well.

re: "The new amendment doesn't require your consent. "

No, it says:

"The current version of the amendment does include a provision requiring Netflix to get their customers’ consent before sharing their viewing history."

"Current version" means the version of the amendment that has been passed by the House (which is subject to further changes before until it passes the Senate). At least as of now, this amendment DOES require your consent.

I think you were confused because you thought "current version" referred to what is already in place, but there IS no amendment currently in place. There is an ACT. They are debating an amendment to that act.

Most every time, your automatic options are to opt in, and you have to find the opt out----instead of the other way. If this did not happen all the time, it wouldn't be so much or an issue. But, opting out is almost universally hard to do, and opting in is so easy. True consent would be: Check this box if you want to opt in. How many times have you seen that?

Sounds like another company has discovered how to commit suicide by pissing off its customers.

I have an unemployed friend sharing mine and he watches all kinds of weird sci-fi sh**

"....an amendment to the 1988 Video Protection Privacy Act, which FORBIDS movie rental companies from sharing or selling their customers’ viewing history...."

I know this comes as a shock, but not everything repubs do is completely insane.

The new law allows them to sell your viewing info to whomever
they want.

I had to read it multiple times to understand what it was saying.

The new amendment passed this week, negates your quoted statement.

It tells what the original law does, but doesn't spell out what the amendment accomplishes. So it could conceivably be an unrelated modification, or it could overturn the original intent. You only get the impression of what it does based on the effect summary that follows.

It would have been better if you dug into the link within the link (although I agree you shouldn't have to). If you did, you'd see that it says this:

The way I read it, it says that the amendment is to the 1988 VPPA which already forbid rental companies from sharing, they are amending it to allow the sharing

The wording is tricky in the OP

but also yes, the logic of the entire context does make clear that the original Act prohibited the sharing of the information, and the amendment under consideration removes that prohibition. But I don't agree that it necessarily has to be stopped, as I discussed in message #1.

From Wikipedia:

here is the story from the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/business/bill-would-let-video-consumers-disclose-all-their-choices.html?_r=0

Stop using Facebook or whatever the next social media thing will be.

Don't give industry a market to sell to and then you would not have to be concerned.

Facebook annoys the hell out of me. Doesn't anybody believe in keeping your business, your business anymore?
Instead, we have people posting their entire lives out to the public, then becoming outraged when it's used against them.

The past wasn't always something to be nostalgic about, but I do miss the concept of privacy.

The law as PRESENTLY WRITTEN is a follows:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2710

I already watched the Weather Underground flick on Netflix, but...

I refuse to have a facebook, therefore I have no friends.

to expand on the bill to include the use of cookies and Flash objects needing written our consent for the marketing of our web history to e-tailers.
Every day the rad right wing brings Animal farm closer to reality so that the 1/2% can lord over our government and the unwashed masses.
Hail Porky!

Oh wait, they won't, because I'll never link my Netflix and Facebook accounts. Phew.

And undoubtedly some of it is softcore porn. It still isn't right to allow a company to sell you, literally YOU, to anyone for any price, without your permission.

again THE REPUBLICANS PASSED THIS IN THE HOUSE.

Never trust Republicans!!!

and now I'm not going to use Netflix anymore.

The internet can keep up this information sharing crap, and I can just buy books for my entertainment. Oh well, I loved you interwebz, but we gotta break up now. Its just not working out. It's me, not you. We've both changed. Our sex life is terrible. You're having an affair with the Republicans. We argue all the time.

1988 law was passed because the late Robert Bork's viewing habits came under unauthorized media scrutiny when he was nominated for the bench seat that eventually went to that great Nazi turd Antonin "The Fixer" Scalia.

...that there's ONE video rental store left in my town. And they have a better selection than Netflix.