Michael K. Powell Quotes

We need a government which, yes, guarantees basic standards in public services, but which also steps in to protect people's wellbeing as they take part in our consumer democracy - particularly online.

Like almost every major infrastructure, the Internet can be abused and its users harmed. We must, however, take great care that the cure for these ills does not do more harm than good. The benefits of the open and accessible Internet are nearly incalculable, and their loss would wreak significant social and economic damage.

The information superhighway should not look like a red light district.

Basic labeling and consumer information hasn’t been a chief priority, but hopefully now its starting to change.

Any outcome, any deal that doesn't preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet for consumers and entrepreneurs will be unacceptable.

As part of my efforts to fight identity theft, I worked with my colleagues on the Financial Services Committee to strengthen consumer protection with a reasonable notification requirement.

Advertising is the very essence of democracy.

I have a vision that's about technology that empowers consumers over institutions.

Most Americans don't think about antitrust law when they look at their cable bill, flip channels on TV, or worry about what their favorite website knows about them. But they should.

Apple does great products, but at the end of the day we think consumers want choice, consumers want openness.

There's a popular saying that the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. Desire and innovation will trump policy, the argument goes, as clever programmers circumvent controls.

I'd rather deal with a big company, because at least I can sue them, and see them, and know what they're doing. Google, for instance, shows you everything they've collected on you, with a clearly written privacy policy. They tell you what they're doing with it. I'm not scared by that.

23andme is very independent and committed to focusing on transparency.

I made it real clear to the business community - if your plan for innovation is to trick people, is to fool them, is not to tell them the truth about the price, then you're right: I'm going to be right in the way.

The bottom line is the best consumer protections are competitive, innovative markets that are transparent. Now, they need to be vigorously policed for force and fraud, but the agencies that do that need to be accountable.

No access to me, nor my staff, will ever affect what we do to protect consumers of the state of Florida.

Consumers have the right to know important information about the service they are choosing to purchase and/or use.

In consumer protection, you can say it hurts business; that is, it makes them comply with the law, which is actually what we want them to do, but it helps consumers.

The question is how do you do it [more consumer protection] so that it actually works that way? And that takes analysis, and sometimes collaboration between government and business, to understand how that works.

I think there wouldn't be a Net neutrality debate in this country if we really had a competitive environment for access.

In the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, the FCC strengthened its transparency rule so that Internet service providers must make public more information about their network management practices. They are required to make this information available either on their own website or on the FCC's website.

Reasonable regulations are essential to protect consumers from harmful practices and ensure that consumer financial markets operate in a fair, transparent, competitive manner.

We owe it to consumers to treat their dollars with respect and to double- and triple-check our assumptions about complex marketplaces rather than getting locked into a regulatory tunnel vision that will ultimately leave consumers with fewer, more expensive choices.

The digitization of our society is a challenge that is both legislative and philosophical.

Privacy won't survive the present trajectory of technology - and with the sense of being perpetually watched, humans will behave more cautiously, less subversively. Our ideas about the competitive marketplace are at risk.