Letters: Incentives for Homeowners (and Protection for Renters)

Incentives for Homeowners (And Protections for Renters)

To the Editor:

In “Owning a Home Isn’t Always a Virtue” (Economic View, July 14), Robert J. Shiller looked to Switzerland’s relatively low homeownership rate to make the case that the United States should rethink policies that promote owning a home — and should strengthen laws related to renting.

There is a better, closer-to-home example of a place with relatively favorable landlord-tenant rules: New York City. Many of its rental units are covered by rent controls, and many tenants have strong protections against rent gouging and eviction. By contrast, renters in many other cities are at the mercy of landlords who may wish to take advantage of a strengthening market to force them out through a large rent increase or a refusal to renew a lease.

Professor Shiller lauds the flexibility that renting provides families, allowing them to relocate easily for better jobs. But for tenants facing a rent increase or worse in many American communities, good commutes to work can be lost, advantageous child care or schooling options can be disrupted, or a social support network can be upended — all at a landlord’s whim.

I agree with Professor Shiller that we need to review our landlord-tenant law to help families plan their futures.

RAY BRESCIA

Albany, July 15

The writer is an associate professor of law at Albany Law School.

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To the Editor:

Professor Shiller asks: “In today’s world, is it wise for the government to subsidize homeownership?” Two prominent Americans of vastly different political views apparently have an answer for him.

The first said: “A nation of homeowners, of people who own a real share in their own land, is unconquerable.”

The second said that “an ownership society” is being created in our country, “where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, ‘Welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property.’ ”

Who are these two Americans? The first was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the second was George W. Bush.

RICHARD S. COLMAN

Orinda, Calif., July 15

Letters for Sunday Business may be sent to sunbiz@nytimes.com.

Letters: Incentives for Homeowners (and Protection for Renters)

Incentives for Homeowners (And Protections for Renters)

To the Editor:

In “Owning a Home Isn’t Always a Virtue” (Economic View, July 14), Robert J. Shiller looked to Switzerland’s relatively low homeownership rate to make the case that the United States should rethink policies that promote owning a home — and should strengthen laws related to renting.

There is a better, closer-to-home example of a place with relatively favorable landlord-tenant rules: New York City. Many of its rental units are covered by rent controls, and many tenants have strong protections against rent gouging and eviction. By contrast, renters in many other cities are at the mercy of landlords who may wish to take advantage of a strengthening market to force them out through a large rent increase or a refusal to renew a lease.

Professor Shiller lauds the flexibility that renting provides families, allowing them to relocate easily for better jobs. But for tenants facing a rent increase or worse in many American communities, good commutes to work can be lost, advantageous child care or schooling options can be disrupted, or a social support network can be upended — all at a landlord’s whim.

I agree with Professor Shiller that we need to review our landlord-tenant law to help families plan their futures.

RAY BRESCIA

Albany, July 15

The writer is an associate professor of law at Albany Law School.

•

To the Editor:

Professor Shiller asks: “In today’s world, is it wise for the government to subsidize homeownership?” Two prominent Americans of vastly different political views apparently have an answer for him.

The first said: “A nation of homeowners, of people who own a real share in their own land, is unconquerable.”

The second said that “an ownership society” is being created in our country, “where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, ‘Welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property.’ ”

Who are these two Americans? The first was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the second was George W. Bush.

RICHARD S. COLMAN

Orinda, Calif., July 15

Letters for Sunday Business may be sent to sunbiz@nytimes.com.

Bits Blog: Tougher European Data Protection Measures Proposed by a Member of the European Parliament

In the end, all of those trans-Atlantic flights may not have paid off.

Over the last year, representatives of the United States government and American technology companies have repeatedly traveled to Brussels and Strasbourg in the hopes of containing an effort by the European Commission to strengthen data protection rules for citizens of the European Union.

But on Tuesday morning, Jan Philipp Albrecht, a representative of the European Parliament reviewing the draft regulation, made public a report in which he proposed even stronger measures.

Mr. Albrecht’s proposals represent his own opinions and may not be approved by his parliamentary colleagues. Even so, his recommendations indicate that American lobbying efforts are up against European momentum.

“I think they are trying to slow a moving train, which is difficult to do,” said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group in Washington.

Last January, the European Commission introduced a draft proposal for new data protection rules. The proposed rule would supersede a data protection directive from 1995, which laid out principles for each member state to enact individually.

The draft regulation clarifies and elaborates on those original principles — such as the need for companies and institutions to obtain citizens’ consent before collecting information about them.

It would grant European Union citizens a fundamental new right: data portability or a citizen’s right to easily transfer his or her own personal posts, photos, and video from one online service site to another.

And it comes with a big stick: Companies that violated the rule would be liable to penalties of up to 2  percent of worldwide revenues.

Although the effort is intended to standardize and consolidate the enforcement of data protection regulation across the 27 European Union countries, some American regulators, industry groups and scholars have objected. They say the draft rule was overly broad and burdensome for technology companies to carry out.

Now Mr. Albrecht has proposed further strengthening the data protections by granting citizens additional control over information collected about them — like the right not to be subject to profiling. In his report, Mr. Albrecht, a member of the German Green Party who is the representative of the European Parliament committee reviewing the draft proposal, also said citizens must consent to data collection by opting in and not be asked to opt out by changing a preselected option like a already-checked box.

“The use of default options which the data subject is required to modify to object to the processing, such as preticked boxes, does not express free consent,” Mr. Albrecht wrote.

In a phone interview, Mr. Albrecht said the European Parliament was likely to strengthen parts of the proposed regulation. “There is a huge interest of European citizens in having strong data protection,” Mr. Albrecht said.

That could pose challenges to technology companies.

Granting people the right to transfer the updates and photos they posted on Facebook to Google Plus, for example, may sound perfectly reasonable, said Yianni Lagos, a legal and policy fellow at Ohio State University and the co-author of a recent analysis of the European draft regulation published in the Maryland Law Review. But the proposed rule broadly requires that a company transfer a person’s data “without hindrance” and in a commonly used format.

“We’re not exactly sure what that means,” Mr. Lagos said.

“The largest challenge is the concept of interoperability,” Mr. Lagos said. “Translating from a coded format to a commonly used format, that is what will be difficult and costly to achieve.”

Unhindered transfer of a person’s entire record could also increase the breadth of identity theft, Mr. Lagos said: “One-time access by a hacker could turn into a lifetime data breach.”

Technology companies, he added, must now face the increased liability that could come with the proposed penalty for violators.

“The big difference is the fine,” Mr. Yianni said. “Now there’s a lot more reason to comply.”