Internet service providers and tech companies including Apple and Meta are backing a bill that they say would create privacy protections for consumers. But the proposal also repeals a landmark internet privacy law that the same companies unsuccessfully challenged in court.
The 2019 law limited how internet service providers, or ISPs, can use and monetize information such as a person's browsing history, location and personal information without their consent.
Big ISPs, including Charter Communications, fought that law and sued to overturn it, but ultimately abandoned the challenge last year.
Now, the ISPs, backed by tech companies and local business and banking groups, are pushing a bill that they claim will give consumers a slate of rights over their personal information.
But Attorney General Aaron Frey, a Democrat, was skeptical when testifying against it Monday before the Legislature's Judiciary Committee, citing its broad exemptions and concerns that it would provide less consumer protection than the 2019 law.
"The legislature passed, and my office has successfully defended, an ISP privacy protection that is just fine and legally defensible that protects information at that on ramp," he said. "I don't know why this bill feels the need to repeal that in order to do better things that benefit consumers."
Instead, Frey's office, as well as the ACLU and the Maine Broadband Coalition, are backing an expansion of the 2019 law that would include a consumer opt-in for the use of biometric data, such as facial recognition.
The ISPs and tech groups are opposing that measure in part because it would allow a private citizen to sue a company that violates it.
The Judiciary Committee will work on both proposals before sending them to the House and Senate for votes.
