"Do I really have to obtain consent from all my customers to make a change to my privacy policy?  No one else seems to be following that rule."

We get this question all the time.  It is understandable, given that we often watch Web-based companies expand their usage of consumer data without the affirmative consent of their users.  (In other words, they add a new offering to their service that expands their use or sharing of consumer data, and they default their users into the new offering.) Sometimes they back off temporarily when faced with media backlash or Congressional or regulatory scrutiny, but the pattern nonetheless persists in the long term.  Sometimes we scratch our heads in wonder, since the FTC has taken the position in countless actions for over a decade that if you make a material, adverse, retroactive change to your privacy policy, you need to obtain consent from consumers to apply your new policy to the data you collected under your old policy.