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GOP Senators' New Bill Would Let ISPs Sell Your Web Browsing Data (arstechnica.com)
Yesterday, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and 23 Republican co-sponsors introduced a resolution that would overturn new privacy rules for internet service providers. "If the Federal Communications Commission rules are eliminated, ISPs would not have to get consumers' explicit consent before selling or sharing web browsing data and other privacy information with advertisers and other third parties," reports Ars Technica. "The measure would use lawmakers' power under the Congressional Review Act to ensure that the FCC rulemaking 'shall have no force or effect.' The resolution would also prevent the FCC from issuing similar regulations in the future." From the report: Flake's announcement said he's trying to "protect consumers from overreaching Internet regulation." Flake also said that the resolution "empowers consumers to make informed choices on if and how their data can be shared," but he did not explain how it will achieve that. The privacy order had several major components. The requirement to get the opt-in consent of consumers before sharing information covered geo-location data, financial and health information, children's information, Social Security numbers, Web browsing history, app usage history, and the content of communications. This requirement is supposed to take effect on December 4, 2017. The rulemaking had a data security component that required ISPs to take "reasonable" steps to protect customers' information from theft and data breaches. This was supposed to take effect on March 2, but the FCC under newly appointed Chairman Ajit Pai halted the rule's implementation. Another set of requirements related to data breach notifications is scheduled to take effect on June 2. Flake's resolution would prevent all of those requirements from being implemented. He said that this "is the first step toward restoring the [Federal Trade Commission's] light-touch, consumer-friendly approach." Giving the FTC authority over Internet service providers would require further FCC or Congressional action because the FTC is not allowed to regulate common carriers, a designation currently applied to ISPs.
Contact Senator Flake: https://www.flake.senate.gov/p...
You don't have to be from AZ - put in whatever information you like. Express your discomfort that he's submitted a bill removing consumer protections that let ISPs violate our privacy and sell our medical, health, and financial information to anyone they want without our permission.
Remember, regardless of party affiliation, when you read a politicians description of a bill, you must invert most of the descriptive language he uses.
You are gonna love H.R.1275 - World's Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017.
I shit you not, that is the actual name of the bill.
Just to chime in on a couple of trends I noticed in the earlier posts. First just because a vast population of hackers out there may be able to view your browser history, does not mean they will. Frankly, you are not interesting to hackers. You are interesting to advertisers, which what the Congressional Bill favors. Second, if there was an FCC privacy rule protecting you, it can not be overridden by a Terms of Service agreement. A TOS is just a contract between you and the ISP. In the hierarchy of law, that is the lowest level. If there is a local, state, federal, or Constitutional provision that protects you, that ends the story right there.
-- Perhaps I see less than some, but more than many.
Lol you don't even know the half of it.
These goons will try to make it legal for your ISP to MITM your https sessions so they can scrape and inject marketing data in the name of "protecting consumer freedom of choice"
Seems the trumptards forgot what scum Republicans are. Suck farts trump losers. You got in bed with the swamp. Told you so.
We all know porn is big business in this country, and oddly, those who whine the loudest about porn's influence on society are the largest consumers of porn.
As far back as 2009, studies showed people in the Midwest and deep South, heavy bible-belt country, had larger amounts of porn consumption than other parts of the country. A more recent survey showed the same thing but also, in those places where same-sex marriage was outlawed, gay porn consumption was higher than other places, including where same-sex marriage is legal.
This bill will make it very interesting for those folks to explain why they're getting ads for sexual enhancers, condoms, lube and toys.
Ah, shit.
Its real. But its not THE plan. Its somebody's side plan.
http://www.snopes.com/is-the-gops-obamacare-replacement-titled-worlds-greatest-healthcare-plan-of-2017/
This is not true. Allow me to explain why.
It used to be that the Democrats wanted to solve everything by having the government regulate the everloving sh*t out of it, while the Republicans wanted to encourage/harness open-market capitalist forces to solve everything. It was a pick your poison sort of deal, but, most of the time the two were forced to cooperate and compromise between those two ideas to some degree, and the solution was often at least moderately less bad. Corporations would often be given sweeter deals than they should, but they also rarely if ever completely got their way.
The problem is that today, the Democrats are still trying to solve everything via regulations, but the Republicans have largely switched from trying to find ways to harness market forces to solve problems, to simply declaring that Regulation is Evil, and that allowing corporations to do whatever the f*ck they want will solve everything. Whether that is because they actually drank their own koolaid and really believe it, or they simply believe that what matters is all that money from their donors, tends to depend on the individual politician, but the result is still the same.
Put another way, the Democrats might waffle on how much lead the corporations could put in your water, and they might err and allow too much through, but the current Republicans proudly don't give a sh*t if the corporations are actively dumping toxic radioactive sludge in the water.
Funny, you say that like it was the DNC who picked her, not the millions of people who voted for her in the primaries. I voted for Sanders too, but Clinton did actually legitimately win. The only thing that was going to beat her was another Obama-type candidate who could mobilize and win over enough people on both the left and to the center to outweigh her name recognition and connections.
Unfortunately, the Democratic party bench was so slim, and there were so few candidates interested in running this time, that Sanders was the only serious candidate to pick up the torch. I think someone like Elizabeth Warren could have made a lot more headway against Clinton, for instance, but she declined.
What I wish is that Clinton had gotten herself better general election advisors, that would have told her to do more to actively shore up the base, run ads that tell people about her programs, and not rely on the fact that her opponent was a complete troglodyte. Instead they seemed to think she could coast to victory solely on that, and could make a play for moderate Republicans (as if any still exist that haven't drunk the koolaid) and she wound up badly, badly mistaken.
> The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.
So, do tell, where did the regulations that this bill prevents taking effect come from?