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FCC To Halt Rule That Protects Your Private Data From Security Breaches (arstechnica.com)
According to Ars Technica, "The Federal Communications Commission plans to halt implementation of a privacy rule that requires ISPs to protect the security of its customers' personal information." From the report: The data security rule is part of a broader privacy rulemaking implemented under former Chairman Tom Wheeler but opposed by the FCC's new Republican majority. The privacy order's data security obligations are scheduled to take effect on March 2, but Chairman Ajit Pai wants to prevent that from happening. The data security rule requires ISPs and phone companies to take "reasonable" steps to protect customers' information -- such as Social Security numbers, financial and health information, and Web browsing data -- from theft and data breaches. The rule would be blocked even if a majority of commissioners supported keeping them in place, because the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau can make the decision on its own. That "full commission vote on the pending petitions" could wipe out the entire privacy rulemaking, not just the data security section, in response to petitions filed by trade groups representing ISPs. That vote has not yet been scheduled. The most well-known portion of the privacy order requires ISPs to get opt-in consent from consumers before sharing Web browsing data and other private information with advertisers and other third parties. The opt-in rule is supposed to take effect December 4, 2017, unless the FCC or Congress eliminates it before then. Pai has said that ISPs shouldn't face stricter rules than online providers like Google and Facebook, which are regulated separately by the Federal Trade Commission. Pai wants a "technology-neutral privacy framework for the online world" based on the FTC's standards. According to today's FCC statement, the data security rule "is not consistent with the FTC's privacy standards."
Wow.
Your guy Trump sure is sticking it to the corporations and elites, eh?
What does data security have to do with technology? This is why I don't come to Slashdot any more.
You are welcome on my lawn.
How convenient that Mr. Pai neglected to mention that AT&T was sued in 2014 by the FTC for false advertising -- namely, describing their mobile Internet service as "unlimited" when in fact they would throttle you or cut you off after you exceeded undocumented limits.
AT&T argued that, because the package included voice service, the dispute was outside the FTC's jurisdiction and should properly have been brought by the FCC. Mindbogglingly, the 9th Circuit agreed. ( https://consumerist.com/2016/0... )
So Pai's claim about wanting to achieve regulatory harmony and improved demarcation between agencies is unvarnished bullshit. He's trying to create more opportunity for regulatory arbitrage and pitting one federal commission against another.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
As a European I am astounded that companies don't already have a requirement to keep personal data safe. It is something that I just expect to happen. OK: I do realise that what the law says and what companies actually do can be very different, but still - companies do get fined over here for lax security. This must be why people tell me that the USA is not a safe country for personal data.
Correct.
OH! Sorry, thought you meant all the courts and cops and so on. I guess in a Libertarian paradise there aren't any of those, they all get sold to the highest bidder and operated for a profit, paid by those who can afford it.
Yes, because the only thing protecting the consumer is the Government.
Yes, because we have so much robust competition in the ISP market now! We don't need any government intervention, my local monopoly ISP has all my best interests at heart. If they provide poor service or screw me over, I can just switch to - oh, wait, I can't.
By making it less likely that an ISP will be (frivolously) sued for violating the nebulously unclear standard to take "reasonable" measure measures, Trump's government lowers the cost of the legal insurance, which lowers the total cost of doing business. And that's a good thing for both producers and the customers alike.
Of course, because Comcast/Verizon/etc are totally going to pass those savings on to me, the consumer, rather than pad their executives' bonuses or pay more dividends to stockholders.
I don't give a shit if they have legal insurance, I want my data protected.
Negligence must be punished.
Well, there's one more step backwards for the US. We'll be back in the 1950's in no time at all, while the rest of the world moves forward.
What a load of rubbish this is. These companies aren't going to cut prices if they get cheaper insurance. They're going to pocket the money and stiff their customers by mishandling their information. How fucking stupid do you think we are, anyway?
By making it less likely that an ISP will be (frivolously) sued for violating the nebulously unclear standard to take "reasonable" measure measures, Trump's government lowers the cost of the legal insurance, which lowers the total cost of doing business. And that's a good thing for both producers and the customers alike.
How is it good for customers? Their bills will continue to be same or go up and they'll shoulder all the burden to clean up the identity theft issue after the data breach.
"According to Ars Technica, "The Federal Communications Commission plans to halt implementation of a privacy rule that requires ISPs to protect the security of its customers' personal information." From the report: The data security rule is part of a broader privacy rulemaking implemented under former Chairman Tom Wheeler but opposed by the FCC's new Republican majority."
Republicans screwing over the American public? This is my shocked face.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
My options are Verizon or Comcast. Yea that's some great competition there bunk.
At my old house, Verizon said it was Comcast area; Comcast said it was Verizon that had the lines. Stuck with no one willing to sell me internet. HughesNet wanted +100$ a month for capped and slow ass internet. Once again, great competiton we have there bunk.
The way you THINK it should work usually isn't the way it works. So while your theories may hold some water, in real life they never work out that way, and you know it.
"Once you have a monopoly -- such as "Single Payer" education,
or healthcare, or Internet-Service provision -- the price goes up
and the quality goes down."
what absolute bollocks - USA health costs per person
is about $8000 whereas that bastion of capitalist competition,
Sweden, is $4000 (you can check it out if you know how to
use this thing called the internet).
I think you should think twice before accusing someone
of being "unbelievably dumb" because the world is more
complicated than your view of it.
Don't you get it? In the absence of police, the courts, and so on, people and companies will all choose to do the right thing voluntarily.
The fact that that's repeatedly been the outcome of unregulated economies? Either one, or a very small number of people establish a controlling position, and abuse it to shut everyone else out.
Once you have a monopoly — such as "Single Payer" education, or healthcare, or Internet-Service provision — the price goes up and the quality goes down.
Actually, no - you've got your monopoly on the wrong side with single payer healthcare.
Companies that are monopolies are allowed to arbitrarily increase their prices because they are the single seller.
Single payer health care involves there only being one single insurance company buying goods from the drugs companies, doctors, and hospitals, allowing them to drive the price *down*, not up. That's why healthcare is so much cheaper in Europe than the US.
"Trump's government lowers the cost of the legal insurance, which lowers the total cost of doing business." Are you from some magical land where cable and teleco monopolies would have any reason at all to pass the money they have saved onto the consumer? Because here in america, we're used to paying more and more for the same or worse quality internet service, especially compared to the rest of the world.
That'd be a great idea if people had 5 or 6 different ISPs to choose from that had competitive plans and also had different management mentalities, such as protecting clients' privacy or not. Show me how many places have such markets.
You come bouncing back on here to insult me directly, but you failed completely to answer my point. If ISPs can save money by cutting liability insurance, this is NOT going to lead to lower prices for you, me, or anyone else. This is a flat out lie. And you KNOW it. Your entire post is just a smokescreen to try and bury the issue at hand. All this is trying to do is loosen regulation on personal information so when the ISP inevitably mishandles it, there's no recourse or punishment. This has no benefit to me and I do NOT support it. This is a giveaway to business, and the customers of said business will not benefit in any way. Recent history is filled with these examples. Talk about unbelievably dumb and uneducated, and lacking manners or class. I've read your other posts. Look in the mirror lately?
Not that the FCC was ever very much more than a corporate puppet, but it's fascinating to watch them, and the government in general, find ways to be of even less service to the people.
So far, in just a couple months, we've seen the elimination of the requirement that energy companies must disclose royalties and government payments; the elimination of rules preventing dumping of coal mining waste into rivers and streams; the funneling of even more money into our "only more costly than the next eight countries put together" military; assertion that we need more and better nuclear weapons; suspension of an insurance rate cut for new Federal Housing Administration loans; completely unjustified disruption of already-issued visas; the installation of a white supremacist on the national security council; an order to "review" a rule requiring financial managers to act in their clients' best interests when handling retirement accounts; an "easing" of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010; amplification of the drug war; amplification of the war against personal and consensual sexual choices; partisan filtering of the Whitehouse press pool; anti-free-press agitprop straight from the president... all this, along with a great deal of additional rhetoric that indicates more of this nature is likely on the way.
We no longer need turn to dystopian fiction to see just how badly our government can act out. A dystopian reality is rapidly establishing itself. The indicators are so strong at this point that some of the "peppers" are actually beginning to look like forward-thinkers.
I wonder just how much of this kind of damage the country can suffer before it undergoes some kind of seismic shift, or, if it will just deliquesce into a fully classist, corporatist nightmare.
I prefer to hope that the complacent have had a wake up call as to just how foolish and blind large segments of our population actually is; that they now understand that it is possible that without their active resistance, both at the voting booth and in general, all of this will continue apace while every tweet from President Trump, every bit of nonsense from Spicer and Conway, every craven abrogation of responsibility by congress, every unwise and harmful regulatory alteration, will be met with a blinkered nod-and-drool from the very people that saw to it that he reached the Oval Office — and that this will outright determine the future course of the country along these same destructive lines.
These are such very interesting times. We know we're not 1940's Germans; but we're finally going to get an answer as to whether we are better — or worse. I see little reason for optimism in this regard at this point in time, either.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It most definitely is. A decent quality pizza worth less than $2.00 (I make them from scratch, and that's what they cost me in low quantity in a relatively isolated region where raw materials prices are high, so I'm quite sure of the number) often costs well over $10.00. Sneakers worth about $8.00 can cost far, far more than that -- no more than a little bit of canvas, plastic and metal off a mass production line. The gouging is blatant and obvious. The fact that you are willing to actually write as if it wasn't reveals that you have no actual sense of the economics of either matter.
Because US broadband is lagging far behind the state of the art, and prices are far too high. You should be running much faster, and paying much less. Same was true six years ago. And you are not even at the bottom of the low performance / high price heap. In many places, it's worse.
No, the answer is collusion.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I think you missed what the AC's point. The fact of the matter is there is NO competition in most markets. Consequently, competitive market forces do not work. IOW, if someone doesn't like "their conditions," they probably don't have any options which would enable them to say "thanks, but no thanks" to their provider.
And the idea that another will appear to "fill in the gap" is much easier said than done. With the current investment environment, startups are having a tougher time getting cash. And that doesn't consider the issue of how many people are interested in or willing to startup an ISP business. I suspect that's a pretty small segment of the population. So the chance of that occurring seems quite remote.
The "free market" is not as "free" as some people think.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
No, another one won't fill the gap. ISPs require massive startup costs (digging up the ground to put new cables in isn't cheap) and are legally prevented from providing service in many areas anyway (due to exclusivity agreements).
Fix those problems and then you'll have a point.
I think it would really be years or decades, not months. The current legal environment allows companies to have contracts that monopolize access to the telecommunication lines, and wireless frequencies are also strictly regulated. You might be able to handle SOME connections with laser links, but not most of them.
FWIW, there used to be many more ISPs when things were over dial-up *because* it was impossible to monopolize the lines.
If you want to go dial-up, you can probably still find a choice of ISPs, but who wants a connection that slow. You may need to call long distance, but that's a lot cheaper now than it used to be. (Checking, the first page of a Google search only listed 3 dial up ISPs, and one of them was AT&T.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.