Legislators from the House of Representatives will begin work today on figuring out how to protect American companies from cybersecurity breaches.  The panel will host comments from the retail, tech, and marketing industry sectors, each of which has their own agenda and ideas.  Industry will be pushing for a federal standard on the steps a company must take if its private data is hacked, steps that would supplant a patchwork of cybersecurity laws cobbled together by the various states. Compliance, the companies say, would be more streamlined and efficient and allow for both more certainty and extra security for customers.  On the flip side, consumer privacy advocates argue that federal legislation will erode the more protective laws that are already in place to protect individual users and consumers.

Stay tuned.