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To elaborate:

Media Shouldn't Be Fooled By Fake Neutrality Bill Backed By Broadband Industry

IBT: GOP Legislation Would Undermine FCC's Ability To Enact Net Neutrality Regulations. As the International Business Times reported, the legislation proposed by congressional Republicans purports to ban broadband providers from blocking or speeding up certain content, or from charging content providers for faster access -- but in reality, undermines the FCC's ability "to impose stricter regulations on broadband companies" by establishing open-Internet rules. [International Business Times, 1/21/15]

Free Press: GOP Legislation "Undermines The Open Internet It Claims To Protect." In a January 21 statement, Free Press Action Fund noted that the GOP legislation would "declaw the one agency responsible for protecting the public interest in communications," rather than "safeguard Net Neutrality," as it claims to do:

Despite what they claim, this legislation won't safeguard Net Neutrality. The bills instead would undermine the FCC's ability to protect Internet users by removing broadband and wireless companies from nearly all agency oversight.

"The legislation fails at the very thing it claims to accomplish. It prohibits a few open Internet violations but opens the door to new industry abuses. It claims to give the FCC limited adjudication powers but removes the agency's ability to adopt and adapt rules to fit the changing landscape for high-speed Internet access. [Free Press, 1/22/15]

The Hill: GOP Bill Will Undermine Future Consumer Protection Efforts And Prevent Broadband Development. In a January 21 op-ed, experts at the Open Technology Institute at the New America Foundation explained that the GOP legislation would "strip the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of crucial legal authority that protects consumers and small businesses on the internet," by limiting the FCC's ability to "adapt to evolving consumer harms." They also explained that the narrowly-written legislation would "eliminate the FCC's ability to help cities build broadband":

Making matters worse, the legislation would leave the FCC powerless to protect consumers from other broadband harms not specified in the bill text, such as those that are already occurring in the interconnection context. When the FCC enacted net neutrality rules four years ago, few anticipated that ISPs would congest their own networks as a strategy to extract fees from edge services like Netflix. But that's precisely what happened throughout 2013 and 2014, according to data collected by the Measurement Lab (a research consortium that includes the Open Technology Institute). The congestion harmed millions of Internet users whose connection speeds slowed to the point of unusability -- but the FCC had no mechanism in place to help these consumers. This prolonged, damaging behavior by multiple ISPs demonstrates why the FCC needs the flexibility to respond to problems as they evolve.

The bill would also eliminate the FCC's ability to help cities build broadband. This is a blow to municipalities that want to offer broadband service to their residents, particularly those currently restricted by state barriers to municipal broadband projects. The Open Technology Institute has consistently found that some of the fastest and most affordable broadband service in America comes from cities that have invested in their own infrastructure. Congress should be figuring out ways to support local government. Instead, the Thune-Upton bill prohibits the FCC from responding to communities that have asked for help. [The Hill, 1/21/15]

New Republican Bill Is Network Neutrality in Name Only

But, as written, the Republican bill p

There isn't a great deal of difference to me between a government or a multitude of corporations making themselves privy to an increasing share of our personal lives

Actually, the difference is vast: for a corporation to compel either you or another corporation to reveal any data, it has to win legal case — or, a least, convince a judge to issue a subpoena. The government has been gradually lowering this bar for itself over the years — recall the "National Security Letters" (and how easy they are for the government to obtain).

And that's when it bothers with the legal process at all — often it can simply just bust in and take your stuff (without warrant), seize any property on mere accusation of it being used in a crime, and confiscate bank accounts without even an accusation, only suspicion , or, as was the case with Reason.com, demand your "voluntary" cooperation or else...

But my point was not, that the government ought not to investigate legitimate threats against judges and public officials — even hard-core Libertarians would agree, that this is, actually, a proper role of the government. The point is, this particular investigation was patently illegitimate — the "threats" were bogus and hyperbolic and DoJ could not possible have hoped to ever win a conviction.

Their intention was to simply harass the dissenters by hitting them with subpoenas and giving them threatening "talking-tos". The prosecution, in other words, was malicious. That's the disgusting part.

The aspects of Libertarianism that relate to being largely left alone to pursue our lives appeal to me [...] The eagerness of Libertarians to remove regulations on corporate behavior

But there is no difference! What's good for the goose, is good for the chicken as well:

• If a corporation can not discriminate on race or age in hiring a secretary, then you can not discriminate on same in hiring a babysitter.
• If a corporation's employees can vote to obligate their employer to only hire from the same union they just joined, by what logic should your local supermarket be unable to vote itself into becoming the sole legal source of groceries for you?
• If a strip-club can not turn away a transgender entertainer, then you can not be averting your eyes from "her" either — and it would be manifestly bigoted of you to not stick your dollar-bills right next to "her" penis.

Even more obvious examples abound. For example, the EPA considers any billabong in the US to be under its control and protection — so both private citizens and corporations alike now need a Federal Government's approval to build anything on their property, if it happens to have a lake, a stream, or a swamp, however small...

FACT: Downloading JSTOR articles was one minor footnote among the many amazing projects Aaron was working on at the time. From the fall of 2010 until his death in 2013, Aaronâ(TM)s projects included, but were not limited to: SecureDrop, the leak-protecting technology for journalists now implemented by outlets ranging from The New Yorker to Forbes to The Guardian; the SOPA/PIPA fight, The Flaming Sword of Justice (now The Good Fight), a podcast about activism which went on to reach the top of the iTunes charts; VictoryKit, an online campaigning toolset still mobilizing activists around the world; and co-founding Demand Progress.

FACT: Aaron implemented a piece of software that downloaded articles from the JSTOR website faster than JSTOR originally intended. Aaronâ(TM)s software downloaded articles from the JSTOR website to Aaronâ(TM)s laptop, just like a live person would have downloaded them, but without his having to sit there and click through each of the steps manually. Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1...

FACT: Aaron did not hack into any of MITâ(TM)s computers. The CFAA requires that a person gain access to a computer that they werenâ(TM)t authorized to access. Aaron was obviously authorized to access his own laptop.

FACT: Aaron did not hack into MITâ(TM)s network. Aaron connected his laptop to MITâ(TM)s open network by walking into an open computer closet on MITs open campus and simply plugging into an unused ethernet port. Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1...

FACT: Aaron was a âoeFellowâ at the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at the time. Aaron was exactly the type of academic researcher that MIT meant to have downloading articles from the JSTOR database over its open network. Aaronâ(TM)s past research in this regard was the basis of a Stanford Law Review Article where he found troubling connections between corporations and their funding of legal research. Source: Stanford Law Review
http://www.stanfordlawreview.o...

FACT: Aaron wasnâ(TM)t even violating JSTORâ(TM)s Terms of Service at the time. JSTOR and MIT had contractual agreements allowing unlimited downloads to any computers on MITs network.
Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1...

FACT: Downloading JSTOR articles was one minor footnote among the many amazing projects Aaron was working on at the time. From the fall of 2010 until his death in 2013, Aaronâ(TM)s projects included, but were not limited to: SecureDrop, the leak-protecting technology for journalists now implemented by outlets ranging from The New Yorker to Forbes to The Guardian; the SOPA/PIPA fight, The Flaming Sword of Justice (now The Good Fight), a podcast about activism which went on to reach the top of the iTunes charts; VictoryKit, an online campaigning toolset still mobilizing activists around the world; and co-founding Demand Progress. FACT: Aaron implemented a piece of software that downloaded articles from the JSTOR website faster than JSTOR originally intended. Aaronâ(TM)s software downloaded articles from the JSTOR website to Aaronâ(TM)s laptop, just like a live person would have downloaded them, but without his having to sit there and click through each of the steps manually. Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1... FACT: Aaron did not hack into any of MITâ(TM)s computers. The CFAA requires that a person gain access to a computer that they werenâ(TM)t authorized to access. Aaron was obviously authorized to access his own laptop. FACT: Aaron did not hack into MITâ(TM)s network. Aaron connected his laptop to MITâ(TM)s open network by walking into an open computer closet on MITs open campus and simply plugging into an unused ethernet port. Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1... FACT: Aaron was a âoeFellowâ at the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at the time. Aaron was exactly the type of academic researcher that MIT meant to have downloading articles from the JSTOR database over its open network. Aaronâ(TM)s past research in this regard was the basis of a Stanford Law Review Article where he found troubling connections between corporations and their funding of legal research. Source: Stanford Law Review http://www.stanfordlawreview.o... FACT: Aaron wasnâ(TM)t even violating JSTORâ(TM)s Terms of Service at the time. JSTOR and MIT had contractual agreements allowing unlimited downloads to any computers on MITs network. Source: Alex Stamos, http://unhandled.com/2013/01/1...

The Right to Be Forgotten--Stanford Law Review

What scares me the most is:

But in announcing the regulation, Reding said she wanted it to be ambiguous so that it could accommodate new technologies in the future. “This regulation needs to stand for 30 years—it needs to be very clear but imprecise enough that changes in the markets or public opinion can be maneuvered in the regulation,”

I'll quote again what I call HungryHobo's Law: "If there's an insane way to apply a law which everyone dismisses as 'nobody would ever apply it like that' then you can bet your ass it will be abused exactly like that."

more importantly, "absolute privacy" is a strawman? who's talking about absolute privacy?

http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/privacy-paradox/right-to-be-forgotten

In theory, the right to be forgotten addresses an urgent problem in the digital age: it is very hard to escape your past on the Internet now that every photo, status update, and tweet lives forever in the cloud. But Europeans and Americans have diametrically opposed approaches to the problem. In Europe, the intellectual roots of the right to be forgotten can be found in French law, which recognizes le droit à l’oubli—or the “right of oblivion”—a right that allows a convicted criminal who has served his time and been rehabilitated to object to the publication of the facts of his conviction and incarceration. In America, by contrast, publication of someone’s criminal history is protected by the First Amendment, leading Wikipedia to resist the efforts by two Germans convicted of murdering a famous actor to remove their criminal history from the actor’s Wikipedia page.