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Senate Votes To Kill FCC's Broadband Privacy Rules (pcworld.com)

The Senate voted 50-48 along party lines Thursday to repeal an Obama-era law that requires internet service providers to obtain permission before tracking what customers look at online and selling that information to other companies. PCWorld adds: The Senate's 50-48 vote Thursday on a resolution of disapproval would roll back Federal Communications Commission rules requiring broadband providers to receive opt-in customer permission to share sensitive personal information, including web-browsing history, geolocation, and financial details with third parties. The FCC approved the regulations just five months ago. Thursday's vote was largely along party lines, with Republicans voting to kill the FCC's privacy rules and Democrats voting to keep them. The Senate's resolution, which now heads to the House of Representatives for consideration, would allow broadband providers to collect and sell a "gold mine of data" about customers, said Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat. Kate Tummarello, writing for EFF: [This] would be a crushing loss for online privacy. ISPs act as gatekeepers to the Internet, giving them incredible access to records of what you do online. They shouldn't be able to profit off of the information about what you search for, read about, purchase, and more without your consent. We can still kill this in the House: call your lawmakers today and tell them to protect your privacy from your ISP.

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  1. Plutocracy by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm pretty sure if you polled voters, even those in red states, they'd mostly be against this. So why did the Senate do this? Because they get campaign funds and free campaign ads from big telecoms.

    If this is not plutocracy in action, I don't know what the hell is.

  2. For the Knee Jerks by footNipple · · Score: 5, Informative

    For the kneejerks, I humbly offer the original document this Senate resolution references:
    https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/...

    I wonder if the Senate overturned this regulation because they hate privacy or because of the fact these are "legislature level" rules being enacted by unelected bureaucrats in the last days of an administration that did everything it could to control its citizenry without the approval of Congress.

    And this is to say nothing of the fact that Google and their ilk shouldn't be allowed to indulge in their raging data collection fetishes without letting the big telcoms and isp's wet their beaks. Right?

  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. It was never a law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    1. It was an FCC rule, not a law passed by Congress. Resolution didn't repeal it. One section was struck because it didn't do anything to actually protect user privacy because of exemptions in rule, it didn't address privacy issues of services like Facebook, Google, Amazon.com, and because it likely violated 1st amendment protection of commercial speech by singling out ISPs while not addressing other communications service providers.
    2. It was approved by the FCC 2-1 vote in late October 2016. It was a last minute decision that
    3. It was scheduled to go into effect March 2 2017, but had been stayed after the election. The privacy rule has never been in effect.
    4. It was an attempted power grab of the FCC over that of the FTC which, up until a ninth court of appeals decision in 2016, had regulatory jurisdiction over broadband data providers. Expect more regulatory reform to reverse the 9th court's ruling and to make it a requirement that any major change to a regulatory agency jurisdiction will need congressional approval first.

  5. Re: Lots of valuable information... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Privateinternetaccess.com I've used it before and was impressed. Why I like them:

    1.No logs are taken
    2.Can work with router or as an app
    3.Only 3.33 monthly
    4.Also works as a proxy
    5.Can pay for it anonymously with gift cards
    6.Its focused towards family privacy so it doesn't paint a giant target on you like some Torrentfreak extreme VPN

  6. Re:Lots of valuable information... by dpilot · · Score: 3, Informative

    Which raises a red flag to every TLA around, saying "Add this guy to the watch list."

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  7. Re:For the Republican readers by meglon · · Score: 2, Informative

    When you start off with your head up your ass, you can only spout the bullshit that's collected in your mouth,

    1 - the president doesn't have the authority to repeal an act, such as the Patriot Act....congress does; you know, like the republican house that did absolutely nothing while Obama was in office. You too fucking stupid to remember that far back?

    2 - https://www.washingtonpost.com...
    https://www.bloomberg.com/poli...
    http://www.rollcall.com/news/r...
    I mean seriously, how fucking stupid do you have to be to not see EVERY damn news article about Gitmo closing had republicans blocking Obama from doing it? Are you seriously that fucking stupid, or is the problem you just can't fucking read?

    3 - this just sounds like you being a typical whiny ass republican dipshit who can only spout catchwords they here coming out of some other republicans ass.

    4 - just quit being a lying bitch. If you're in a red state that didn't expanded medicare, the problem is your fucking ideologically driven cocksucking republicans who'd rather see people die than get medical help.

    5 - http://abcnews.go.com/Politics... You're just a fucking stupid parrot.

    6 - have to say, i can't find this rabid-cocksucking-republican talking point anywhere, so i have to assume you're simply full of shit like all the other republicans conspiracy theory fuckwads. http://fairuse.stanford.edu/ov... for reading not tied to some cocksucking republican lying bitch. 7 - here you're just full of shit. opinions are like assholes... like you. Obama didn't obfuscate government transparency more than any other president before him, although VP Darth Cheney probably did much worse without cocksuckers like you saying anything about it. Now you have the worthless twat Trump in office, who appears to be bought and paid for by Russia, and a bunch of co-conspirator republican traitors who won't hold him accountable. Fucking republicans are what's wrong in this country.... traitors, liars, and all around pieces of shit.

    --
    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's