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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.

28 of 404 comments (clear)

  1. Time to sign up for a VPN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What the subject says...

  2. Again like I said! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This is what we get when America votes Republican. Soon, someday very soon they will see the error of their ways and correct course. They had a great opportunity in this election, but the KKK and the Neo Nazis got out in force and voted for Trump.

    1. Re:Again like I said! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Judging from the vote along party lines it certainly seem that socialists care a lot more then the fascists.

      (also not touching the flame bait portion)

    2. Re:Again like I said! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 3, Insightful

      so socialists care about person privacy?

      (not responding to republican == KKK nonsense)

      Funny these so called socialists who are really democrats that are center right all voted against it. What do you say about that?

    3. Re:Again like I said! by lgw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Stop being taken in by political theater.

      The mainstream of the Dems and GOP is the same party - the Deep State. They have the same goals - protect the financial interests of large donors (most of which donate to both parties, of course). They stage these pretend-fights to give have of the entirely corrupt crowd cover on any given vote.

      The Dems won the toss, and got cover for this enriching of donors. It means little.

      Both parties have outsiders trying to overturn the Deep State. You can see the old-school media is 100% onboard with the uniparty by how they treat the likes of Trump and Bernie.

      Trump and Bernie aren't faking. They desire actual change to this whole fucked-up corrupt system. Don't fall for the extreme-izing, the other-ing of these guys. They both have a lot of support from mainstream America. And stop being taken in by political theater.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    4. Re:Again like I said! by andydread · · Score: 4, Insightful

      the point remains... on this vote the Fascists are certainly against privacy compared to the Socialists.

    5. Re:Again like I said! by meglon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You really should heed your own advice. The first thing you do is spout of some conspiracy theory bullshit that it would take a fucking idiot to believe.

      This is nothing more than the way things have been going for 35+ years... republicans fucking over the average citizen to give more money to businesses.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
    6. Re:Again like I said! by OhPlz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What happened over the last eight years to stop the NSA and CIA from spying on each and everyone of us?

      Absolutely nothing. That's (apparently) what you get with Dems in charge.

      This game is stupid.

    7. Re:Again like I said! by WheezyJoe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What happened over the last eight years to stop the NSA and CIA from spying on each and everyone of us? Absolutely nothing. That's (apparently) what you get with Dems in charge.

      Correct, and it's not cool. But the GOP hasn't lifted a finger to stop NSA and CIA spying so far on their watch, and I ain't holding my breath that Trump and Co. ever will. Are you?

      OTOH, the GOP acted real quick to kill off this little squeak of consumer protection which the Dems managed to keep in place in spite of heavy ISP lobbying.

      Besides, the NSA and CIA don't see dollar-signs from selling you out... but ISP's do, and that's the only reason they lobbied the GOP to do it. They will sell your info as many times as they can for whoever's willing to pay. That means a whole lot more people, companies, ad agencies, police departments, polling companies, employment contractors, local governments, anyone willing to pay up (even... the NSA and CIA) can learn what you do from the Internet service that you pay for.

      Put this in perspective: to even half-way avoid this you have to dump your ISP, and either stay off the net entirely or only connect using other people's ISP's, like stealing someone's wi-fi or parking outside a McDonald's. Yeah, you can VPN, but your ISP will be aware that you're using a VPN, and they'll be happy to tell that to anyone who's willing to pay.

      --
      Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
  3. Sad day for land of the free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yet another freedom evaporates thanks to corporate greed and political corruption

  4. Lose anonymity, lose bargaining power. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Companies want to extract maximum revenue from careless and casual customers and would grudgingly provide better deals to informed customers who insist on fair deals. They try to give coupons and deals to the informed customers and charge the rack rate for the customers who don't bother. Till now they could only do this at broad categories.

    Once they have individualized information, all customers lose their bargaining power. They will know exactly how much you can be squeezed. Unless you are constantly on the vigil and constantly know the best price for each product, you will be taken to the cleaners.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  5. Re:Lots of valuable information... by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What Neuroelectronic said; this will mean more revenue for VPN providers, at least from people who have the technical expertise to set up VPN use.. or that actually understand that 'privacy' is not a sign of mental illness or criminal activity, but a basic human right.

  6. Re:Senator Browser History by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's both really funny and yet a really good idea that we could all get behind.

  7. For the Republican readers by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is what you get for voting for these politicians. But hey enjoy those tax cuts that you probably didn't get if you are not a millionaire.

    To me I can not see how any smart technical person can vote for any Republican. As it stands today the GOP votes:
    1. For mega corporations and monopolies from tech companies who are anti opensource
    2. Believe climate change doesn't exist and is an invention of these elite socialists
    3. Support Trump and his competency as shown on any news site
    4. Hate highspeed internet and do not believe in infrastructure improvements
    5. Believe more H1B1 visa immigrants are needed
    6. Believe the bible should be taught in biology classes (it is in Texas!!)
    7. Believe science should not be funded as it is only opinion oriented and not based on facts like you get from Church or Foxnews
    8. Want more mega monopolies that limit internet and support throttling
    9. Support snooping by corporations
    10. Believe in unlimited funding by companies to elected officials to vote against your own self interests
    11. Believes in old school coal and oil and does not want alternative sources of energy

    Yes this post is going to anger MANY. But it HAS to be said. I lean libertarian myself but I am registering as a democrat as I feel as I.T. and science professionals who go to this site that the Republican Party is the biggest danger we face. Even more dangerous than Microsoft was back in the day.

    Anyone with an IQ over 100 who is not a millionaire and works in the I.T. field needs to stop supporting these guys.

  8. Re:Lots of valuable information... by omnichad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    LOTS more, because VPN providers can also sell your browsing data.

  9. If you want to go to jail. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Laws like this DO NOT work both ways. They never have, and they never will. A stunt like this will not motivate politicians to change their ways, but merely to punish you. They are the ones with the means to enforce double-standards, and they absolutely will.

    Know your place.

  10. Re:Plutocracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Republican voters are generally considered bunch of ignorant people who don't understand this and hence are unlikely to vote on the basis of this issue. For them, pro-life, white supremacy, Christianity, freedom to do what you like (hunting, polluting) and more right to rich people (no minimum wage, vouchers for private schools) etc matters. Large companies support them because they benefit from them. Most rich people like the extra income they get from republicans and hence the selfish ones support them. Middle class and concerned rich people and educated poor, lower-middle class vote for democrats.

  11. Re:This is America. Privacy is dead. by HornWumpus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's unlikely there will be a legal solution to corporate snooping.

    The only possible solution to government snooping is technical. Which will solve the first problem as a bonus.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  12. Re: Lots of valuable information... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Any VPN caught selling information would be detrimental to its business.

  13. More Information by apharmdq · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I mentioned this elsewhere, so I'll mention it here:
    From what I've been able to gather, this is about S.J. Res. 34, a resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the FCC in December 2016 about protecting privacy of broadband and telecommunications customers. I've only browsed through the FCC rule, so I don't know the complete details on it just yet, but I would hesitate to jump to conclusions here.

    First, I'd like to know better what the rule itself says, because depending on how it's written, there may be acceptable grounds for rejecting it.

    Secondly, do know that this rule only came into effect on January 3 of this year. So up until 3 months ago, these supposed protections didn't apply to anyone. So if this resolution does completely pass, that means we roll back to how things were at the end of last year.

    I'm going to hold off on losing my mind until I get the chance to read up a bit more on the FCC rule and the details behind it. Sometimes knowing the context of something makes it a lot more understandable.

  14. #MAGA by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Insightful

    But those emails! It would have been a disaster to have a president under FBI investigation, right?

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  15. Re:Plutocracy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't understand why this comment is marked as "insightful" it is at the least ignorant and at the worst bigotry. While that might be how you and the people you associate with and the news organizations you follow view Republicans just realize Democrats aren't viewed any better by Republicans than Republicans are viewed by Democrats. If you think your group is on some moral high ground then you aren't really educated and don't really know anything about people in this country. If you were educated or did know anything about people across the country then you would know that the Republicans think Democrats are just as much a group full of rats and garbage as you think the Republicans are. And this is the root of our problems in this country. Everyone thinks their group has all the right answers and that the other group is a bunch of greedy rats. Guess what, there are good and bad people in every corner of this country, you can find good and bad Republicans/Democrats/Upper class/Middle class/Poor/Movie Stars/Corporate Executives/etc... everywhere, so lets stop acting like children and realize that the only right answer will always be to compromise. We have to compromise on everything so that we get things that work well for most people. As long as we are unwilling to compromise then we will continue to see garbage like this where the Republicans overturn something the Democrats did and the Democrats overturn something the Republicans did, it's madness!

  16. Re:What difference, at this point, does it make? by PoopJuggler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It doesn't matter when you got your rights, it only matters when they were taken away. That's like if the English retook the colonies after the Revolutionary War and the colonists just said, "Whelp, we had a nice 5 months of liberty. Oh well.."

  17. Re:Plutocracy by PoopJuggler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't see any Democrats supporting this bill. I don't see any Democrats trying to dissolve the EPA. I don't see any Democrats repealing the Stream Protection Act. I don't see the Democrats cutting education funding. I don't see the Democrats taking away people's health insurance. I don't see the Democrats defunding Planned Parenthood. I don't see the Democrats pushing through oil pipelines. I don't see the Democrats endorsing coal. Jesus, I could go on and on.

  18. Re:Lots of valuable information... by gnick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    An ISP caught selling your info is still an ISP. A VPN provider caught selling your info won't be a VPN provider for long.

    --
    He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  19. Re:Lots of valuable information... by sed+quid+in+infernos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Exactly. Most people don't have a choice of ISP. They do have a choice of VPN, so VPN providers are subject to market forces.

  20. Re: Lots of valuable information... by BeaverCleaver · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The more legitimate users on tor, the less true this becomes.

  21. Re:Plutocracy by Grishnakh · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Congratulations, you just proved the OP's claims about Republicans being uneducated morons.