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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.

12 of 404 comments (clear)

  1. Lots of valuable information... by Neuroelectronic · · Score: 5, Funny

    About what VPN i use.

    1. Re:Lots of valuable information... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      VPN recommendations? Any that work for a whole house wireless network?

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

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

    3. Re: Lots of valuable information... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    4. 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.
  2. Sad day for land of the free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yet another freedom evaporates thanks to corporate greed and political corruption

  3. Senator Browser History by Scorpinox · · Score: 5, Funny

    Someone should start a kickstarter to buy and release the browsing history of every US Senator who voted for this.

    1. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. Time to poison the data pool by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What's worse than no data? Poisoned data. A collection of data where you cannot tell which is legit and which is bogus.

    What we need is a tool that simply opens a LOT of connections to a LOT of servers worldwide. No need to hide your browsing in VPN. Hide it in noise.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  6. 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?

  7. 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.