'Why The US Senate's Vote To Throw Out ISP Privacy Laws Isn't All Bad' (technologyreview.com)

"Nobody wants their data spread far and wide," write two associate editors at MIT Technology Review, "but the FCC's rules were an inconsistent solution to a much larger problem." An anonymous reader writes: They point out the rules passed in October "weren't even yet in effect," but more importantly -- they only would've applied to ISPs. "[T]he reality is that the U.S. doesn't have a baseline law that governs online privacy," and the truth is, it never did. "The FCC's new privacy rules would have been dramatic, to be sure -- but they would only have addressed one piece of the problem, leaving companies like Facebook and Google free to continue doing much the same thing.
While the repeal still needs approval in the U.S. House of Representatives and the president's signature, their article argues that what's really needed is "a more consistent approach to privacy."

Comments

Brrr

[gerf]

Did someone leave a window open? It seems a little shilly in here.

Re:Brrr

[Anonymous Coward]

By coincidence, everybody that disagrees with me on any position is also a plant! How convenient.

Re:Brrr

[Immerman]

Agreed. Sure, replacing it with something more consistent and expansive would definitely be better, but that's not happening.

So what exactly is "not all bad" about repealing the imperfect protections we *do* have?

Re:Brrr

[Dragonslicer]

So what exactly is "not all bad" about repealing the imperfect protections we *do* have?

The executives at the ISPs will get a slightly higher bonus this year. I guess technically that means it isn't all bad?

Re: Brrr

[nitehawk214]

Because then we will have no protection at all.

Re:Brrr

[arglebargle_xiv]

Why The US Senate's Vote To Throw Out ISP Privacy Laws Isn't All Bad

Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your vote here is only MOSTLY bad. There's a big difference between mostly bad and all bad. Mostly bad is slightly good. With all bad, well, with all bad there's usually only one thing you can do. Go back to debating healthcare reform with Miracle Trump. And remember, you rush a Miracle Trump, you get rotten miracles.

Re:Brrr

[currently_awake]

There are 2 ways to make this stop: 1-Convince your elected rep that spying is costing him/her votes. 2-Deliberately inject garbage into the spying, so those that benefit from it stop benefiting, and therefore stop paying for it.

Re: Brrr

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a fern.

Re:Brrr

[zugmeister]

Bravo! Bravo!

Re:Brrr

[tsa]

A more consistent approach to privacy probably means for them that they more consistantly ignore it.

Re: Brrr

[Anonymous Coward]

You still believe that enslaving every American to an insurance company is "healthcare".

Re: Brrr

[Zarsheiy]

*whoosh*

Re:Brrr

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 2 ways to make this stop: 1-Convince your elected rep that spying is costing him/her votes. 2-Deliberately inject garbage into the spying, so those that benefit from it stop benefiting, and therefore stop paying for it.

Well this Republican shit is costing the Republicans votes. What I mean is, when SOPA and CISPA were being bounced around Congress, the people did not want it and protested it an made it very VERY CLEAR to the Congress Critters that we did not want it and that it was political SUICIDE to continue to support it. That is all well and good and forgivable, so you found something the people didn't like and then righted the ship.

That is not what they did, they took the SAME FUCKING LEGISLATION and disguised it as a foot note in another CISPA type bill and here we are again. I am fed up with these republican congress critters that require baby sitting constantly to keep them from selling out the freedoms of the American people.. Seriously guys do we have to protest and threaten a fucking riot every time you want to slip the same "We spy on the people and sell that information to the highest bidder" crap legislation into a bill? WTF Congress??? We already know you don't want the people to have healthcare without paying out the ass for it.. but this? Why should the American people stand for this treasonous crap? WHY?

Re:Brrr

[Anonymous Coward]

rawling the web with YY has been a bit problematic. I'm not really sure whether the program is is super flaky, misconfigured, my computer slightly broken, or they are actively trying to disrupt it. Computer is a dell built for windows vista running a very light linux distro. Checked on it the other day and it was stuck on a website dedicated to magic mushrooms. The program seems to have lost track of the amount of space its using on the hard drive the fan spins wildly and often I seem to need to kill the process and reinstall the original configuration. Not really sure that this is a good solution for the second option.

Re:Brrr

[Anonymous Coward]

yacy intead of yy

Re: Brrr

[Anonymous Coward]

Cant do it directly got to go through the rent seekers first.

Re:Brrr

[andygriff1]

Why The US Senate's Vote To Throw Out ISP Privacy Laws Isn't All Bad

Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your vote here is only MOSTLY bad. There's a big difference between mostly bad and all bad. Mostly bad is slightly good. With all bad, well, with all bad there's usually only one thing you can do. Go back to debating healthcare reform with Miracle Trump. And remember, you rush a Miracle Trump, you get rotten miracles.

Worst day for internet privacy. I mean how can you let your online privacy to be open. This FCC bill throwing is not less than a joke. Seriously, people need to get combat from this and use a VPN to protect their data and ISPs to look into your system. The most encrypted, fast streaming and dedicated servers can be found on PureVPN.

Re:Brrr

[Immerman]

>I am fed up with these republican congress critters that require baby sitting constantly to keep them from selling out the freedoms of the American people.

What exactly did you think was meant by "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance"? It's not foreign powers we have to constantly protect ourselves against.

Not the same

[GezusK]

I can choose to not give Google and Facebook my data. I don't get that choice with my ISP. I have only have one available, and they can see all my traffic.

Re:Not the same

[Waffle Iron]

This is no worse than back in the 1960s when Ma Bell used to have its people listen in on all phone calls and write down the topics discussed on decks of index cards for each phone account. They then sold stacks of these cards to outfits like Montgomery Ward and S&H Green Stamps, which helped them to mail out coupon offers tailored for customers' interests. They only sent copies to J. Edgar Hoover when he said there was a good reason.

The U.S. Post office enhanced their revenues with a similar program steaming envelopes (note that stamps only cost a couple of cents back then, so it sure was effective at holding down prices). It was a win-win for everybody; what's the big deal?

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

But the Free Market! And Competition! Seriously, though, the points about Google and Facebook are valid as well. Both function by pervasive littering of websites with their trackers to better "know" their targets for ad purposes. That an ISP may be your only choice matters little in the grand scheme of what this represents. Or put more simply, it should not be a requirement of the average person to engage in pervasive, vigilante activities that their activities, online or in public, not be constantly monitored by government* or corporations. This is precisely the place where law should be written to adequately set boundaries.

Regardless, the argument is as absurd as the repealing [and replacing] of Obamacare. Clearly there was never an intention to replace then. There clearly isn't an intent to replace this with "something better" here either.

* The US Government has shown that it will (1) buy intelligence from domestic corporations to circumvent the very clear intent of the 4th Amendment, (2) trade intelligence with other countries to do the same, and (3) just outright violate the 4th Amendment. This isn't, thankfully a pervasive problem at all levels and forms of government, but clearly (1) and (2) should be made (3), where at least there's the potential of punishment instead of acceptance that such is the norm. In hand with that should be limiting monitoring in the first place. Only then will I consider the argument about choosing to not use Google or Facebook as any sort of valid, as the current situation leaves Google and Facebook as instruments of the government with very little room to actual avoid their tracking outside of limited application.

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? It might be theoretically almost possible with some really clever blocking that is able to perfectly and without missing any filter out all the tracking images, supercookies, scripts and whatnot littering the internet, care to let us in on your setup?

Re: Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Try using a VPN with secure DNS? Choices enough!

Re:Not the same

[ArmoredDragon]

Prior to automated switchboards, there was basically zero expectation of privacy for phone systems. It used to be that your phone line was shared among numerous houses who could listen at any time, and the operator had to listen in to connect calls and terminate them as requested. Metered calls in particular had to have somebody on the line to keep track of your time (and every minute they'd tell you how many minutes your call was so far) for billing purposes.

When it came time to switch to automated systems out of pure necessity, there was even a large group of consumers who resisted it, called the Anti-Digit-Dialing League.

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

NoScript, Adblock, Disconnect, Request-policy, Cookie Monster, Better Privacy, uMatrix plus Pi-Hole and a few "about:config" hacks I no longer specifically remember.

Disable everything ever, only allow things which are absolutely necessary, and only temporarily. Clean out all the cruft you accumulate anyway ASAP.

Perhaps not 100% safe, but I doubt they like me very much.

Re: Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you Babaling about? Automated dialing and billing was available before 1919. You can't be close to a century old

Re: Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

The simplest solution is make EVERYONE with a copy of my data fully liable for any breach at a value the individual specifies. Don't like it, don't have my data.

The caveat to that is a distinct contract from any other agreement, to rent you indemnification for my data at a price if my choosing. My current price is a billion dollars a second. Don't like it. Don't rent it.

We can have a reasonable compromise. Let's say my data has the same value as a a twenty year old pop song flop.. $150,000 per copy, plus jail time for infringing on my data.

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

This is no worse than back in the 1960s when Ma Bell used to have its people listen in on all phone calls and write down the topics discussed on decks of index cards for each phone account. They then sold stacks of these cards to outfits like Montgomery Ward and S&H Green Stamps, which helped them to mail out coupon offers tailored for customers' interests. They only sent copies to J. Edgar Hoover when he said there was a good reason.

The U.S. Post office enhanced their revenues with a similar program steaming envelopes (note that stamps only cost a couple of cents back then, so it sure was effective at holding down prices). It was a win-win for everybody; what's the big deal?

Please cite.... or are you being sarcastic? Trying to imagine the massive army of people necessary to have accomplished any of the things you just wrote, and the mass graves they're all lying in to keep it all on the hush-hush.

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no free market in ISPs. The major players have carved up America into fiefdom monopolies, largely using a national patchwork of municipal laws.

If there were an actual free market, a privacy-centered competitor could arise that would challenge the major incumbents. That cannot happen today, not because of the FCC or the Senate but because of the countless monopolistic arrangements made at the municipal level across America.

Re: Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

choices enough, but more money to pay for the VPN, probably slower performance thru the VPN, your ISP will be aware that you're using a VPN (and why not flag you and apply automated efforts to crack it), and what makes you trust your VPN so much anyway? They can sell you out, or get (or be already) hacked. Just sayin', there needs to be something better.

Re: Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't be close to a century old

According to the D&D Monster Manual, dragons live for thousands of years.

Re: Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

OP is obviously joking, but I had to scroll aways down to see someone who knew that. Odd.

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no free market in ISPs. The major players have carved up America into fiefdom monopolies, largely using a national patchwork of municipal laws.

Read the 7th and 8th words in my post.

If there were an actual free market, a privacy-centered competitor could arise that would challenge the major incumbents. That cannot happen today, not because of the FCC or the Senate but because of the countless monopolistic arrangements made at the municipal level across America.

You mean like how DuckDuckGo is kicking Google's ass? You see, there's massive barriers to entry to being an ISP or a Search Engine. Most of that comes down to having the money to cross the barriers to entry. So, we see companies like Microsoft enter the field because they've already saturated their markets and need somewhere to spend their money to diversify and grow. Same reason they were willing to hemorrhage money to get into the console market.

Meanwhile, Facebook was able to spring up in much the same way Google was able to: it was early enough in the market to basically supplant the current leader (Myspace) with new users. Same thing with Windows. Still, DuckDuckGo could take off eventually. And as much as you deride it, small time ISPs do exist all over the US and do provide a certain degree of competition. To actually coup out the rest and be a big player, though, isn't likely. It's still a doable, though.

Regardless, you missed the meat of my post: we need laws to protect our privacy and any claim of "repeal and replace" is just blowing smoke up our asses as we see more government and corporate surveillance.

Re:Not the same

[MatthiasF]

This is not a fair statement. Google and Facebook both still track you if websites have links to their sites or embedded functions (Adsense, logins, etc.). It takes a significant effort to avoid it (plug-ins, IP blocking, etc.), enough so that the average user is unlikely to do so.

Which is very similar to the issue with ISPs, where using Tor or a VPN would be the only way to hide your traffic from them.

I agree with the sentiment in the article. Online privacy should be made law in such a way that it affects all sources of abuse and not just targeting one or two major players.

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

"That's not fair, it's devastating for my case!"

The point is that you can avoid, or at least make life very difficult for Google and FB. The fact that average users are unlikely to do so is beside the point. Your ISP, OTOH, you have no fucking chance whatsoever against unless - as noted - you go full VPN and TOR, which in itself quite possibly could get your door kicked in.

This makes any comparison between your ISP and Google and Facebook completely disingenuous and invalid.

Re: Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course every telephone system in the country changed on the same day.

No, fuckface, I'm less than 40 years old and grew up with a party line phone. Many, many people I. Their 70s were telephone operators.

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

That's really all that needs to be said.

It's irresponsible, and promotes a dangerous sort of ignorance, to pretend that ISPs and Web service operators are somehow equivalent by lumping them, as TFA does, into the category of "Silicon Valley companies" (never mind whether or not the label makes any sense geographically.) And it's quite absurd to claim that it's "unfair" for the FCC to have different rules applying to ISPs and to web service operators - the two categories in no way compete with each other.

Re:Not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

How would you like to own a company that cannot sell the same information as your competitors? Since Google, Bing, Facebook, Firefox and many many others are allowed to sell this data it seems the government overreached when it put a ban on just the providers. It makes perfect sense to why this law was repealed like it or not. Everything you search for can be sold by somebody regardless if this law was in affect or not.

But google and fb can be avoided

[Anonymous Coward]

Google and fb can be avoided, and you can easily chose competitors. I for example don't have a facebook account, and google doesn't directly sell its customer data (it only sells ads based on that data).

But YOU pulled your pants down for Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

and Teh G. You (probably) haven't for your ISP, whom you PAY!

Great thinking!

[spikenerd]

Let's throw out our current privacy protection because we might get a better one later. I think I'll quit my job now so I'll have plenty of time on my hands in case I find a better one. And would anyone like my car? I need to free up some space in my garage in case someone comes along and gives me a better one.

Re:Great thinking!

[SeaFox]

Or like trying to repeal a half-baked healthcare system before we actually come up with a new one that addresses the needs to everyone.

Re: Great thinking!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be absurd. No one is suggesting something that crazy. You undermine reasonable discussion with farcial statements like that

Re: Great thinking!

[Anonymous Coward]

what exactly is a "farcial statement"?

Re: Great thinking!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not "our current privacy protection" it was a time delay sabotage by the Obama administration. Notice that those rules never actually applied at all.

Re: Great thinking!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm reading this post and I can't tell if this is Poe's Law in effect or not...

Re:Great thinking!

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't know the way government works. They cannot come up with something else until the old one is gone.

Wrong direction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Waste of govt time to discard this little bit of regulation, congress should be working on drafting a real privacy law that actually helps people. Let's call it a baseline - if a company obtains information from a customer or user (that is - whether they paid or not) , that information is private and it is unlawful to share it without written consent.

Such a baseline privacy law doesn't even need to mention Internet , online , apps , or whatever. It doesn't need to be only for medical or financial information. It's privacy , by default , everywhere.

This is too simple for govt , no special greedy interests represented here. So it will never happen.

Re:Wrong direction?

[PopeRatzo]

Waste of govt time to discard this little bit of regulation, congress should be working on drafting a real privacy law that actually helps people.

Congress has important tax cuts for rich people and corporations to worry about. They have no time for your measly privacy.

Re:Wrong direction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Butter emails!

Re:Wrong direction?

[axewolf]

They are spending plenty time worrying about your privacy. Not about how to protect it, but how to destroy it forever.

Enemy of the good

[drew_kime]

"The FCC's new privacy rules would have been dramatic, to be sure -- but they would only have addressed one piece of the problem, leaving companies like Facebook and Google free to continue doing much the same thing."

So instead of repealing the law, how about extending to also apply to Google and Facebook?

This is a constant refrain from Republicans: "This solution doesn't solve the problem completely or perfectly, so it should be repealed." If there's any meaningful space between that often-repeated position and simply eliminating all corporate oversight, I can't see it.

Re:Enemy of the good

[tomhath]

So instead of repealing the law, how about extending

It wasn't a law. It was a regulation the FCC made up without the authority to do so. Congress slapped it down, now they will write a real law.

Re:Enemy of the good

[PopeRatzo]

It wasn't a law. It was a regulation the FCC made up without the authority to do so. Congress slapped it down, now they will write a real law.

This Congress has definitely proven how good they are at writing "real laws".

Re:Enemy of the good

[Dragonslicer]

Congress slapped it down, now they will write a real law.

Hahahahaha

This Congress? Spend time doing their jobs?

Hahahahahahahaha

Re:Enemy of the good

[blahplusplus]

"So instead of repealing the law, how about extending to also apply to Google and Facebook?"

Not going to happen, I'll get to why in a moment... check out the links when you get the time. The brain doesn't see the world as it is, see the science on reasoning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

This is former national security advisor of the united states Zbigniew Brezinski, worried about the political awakening of the masses, the rich and corporations fear the political awakening of the masses of the globe, so see what they really think behind closed doors here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7ZyJw_cHJY

On social media -- social media are connected to intelligence agencies... if you think you are going to get privacy it's all bs and optics for the masses.

Reddit and intelligence agencies

Wikileaks -- Reddit and intelligence agencies

These links will take a while to digest, but if you want to understand what's going on in the world, you owe it to yourself to become informed about the true state of the world.

"Intended as an internal document. Good reading to understand the nature of rich democracies and the fact that the common people are not allowed to play a role."

Crisis of democracy

Crisis of democracy - PDF

http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-D... ">Crisis of democracy - BOOK

Education as ignorance

Education as ignorance

Overthrowing other peoples governments

Overthrowing other peoples governments, the master list

Wikileaks on TTIP/TPP/ETC

Wikileaks

Energy subsidies

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2015/NEW070215A.htm

Interference in other states when the rich/corporations dont get their way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxp_wgFWQo&feature=youtu.be&list=PLKR2GeygdHomOZeVKx3P0fqH58T3VghOj&t=724

Protectionism for the rich and big business by state intervention, radical market interference.

http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499/

Manufacturing consent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwU56Rv0OXM

https://vimeo.com/39566117

Manufacturing consent (book)

http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499/

Testing theories of representative government

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf

Democracy Inc

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed- Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X

From war is a racket:

"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil inter

Re:Enemy of the good

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a regulation the FCC made up without the authority to do so.

Uhh, no. The FCC absolutely had the authority make and enforce this regulation. The only authority to say that they don't is the courts, and no lawsuit threw this regulation out.

Re:Enemy of the good

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a fuck-load of reading, bookie, and some may make for good debate. But reading it all will drive you into tin-foil-hat madness. That is, unless your only goal is to just feel superior to all the plebes out there, going about their ordinary jobs and the ordinary lives, in which case by all means keep reading and feeling superior. Just remember how many 1000's of plebes are doing their jobs so you can order and receive that pizza when you get hungry. None of that shit offer any solutions, just blame and conspiracies and doom and we're all fucked by the Man.
Lighten up. Lose the tin-foil hat. Have a beer. Shit, have two or three.

Re:Enemy of the good

[Anonymous Coward]

They just did their jobs. They stopped a regulation that might have reduced the ability for businesses to more precisely target consumers. Their under-the-table employers are very happy.

Re: Enemy of the good

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus Christ you have too much time on your hands

Re:Enemy of the good

[Anonymous Coward]

I really find it hard to understand how some (most) people still think that personal privacy will return. Do you have any idea the amount of money that flows from the ISP's and large internet entities to politicians and regulators, legal and illegal. On one investigation I had a chance look at numbers that were pretty accurate. The amount is staggering, absolutely staggering. In my old job if your investigation ran across this information you just left it; or you were dead; no questions asked! I laugh when people call the United States a democratic free enterprise. It has been several decades since that were the case. It is now a 'Financial Fascism" at the very least. Just try to start a Microsoft, or Facebook, competitor and you will quickly get a feel for what I mean. At the very least your will be sued out of existence. I suspect it will take quite a revolution to change anything now. At least I will die shortly; I am not sure I could live with this system haven grown up in a real Democratic Free-Enterprise society. Good Luck to you all!

Re:Enemy of the good

[bheerssen]

Republicans tell us that government is the problem, and now that they are in power, they intend to prove it.

Re: Enemy of the good

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for voting in the bastards that did that, in exchange for a slightly easier life than you were gonna get otherwise, leaving no freedom for those that come after. Good job baby boomer!

Re:Enemy of the good

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand much of anything do you?

Google is the backbone of USA worldwide spying and intelligence. Why do you think Eric Schmidt was meeting with Obama so often?

Google is golden worldwide database of knowledge that the government can tap into anytime they like with NSA orders or court orders. Read your email, see your searches.

The US Government doesn't want Google to do less. Google is a major resource in the government/corporation hegemony, performing functions that government itself is prohibited from performing.

Re: Enemy of the good

[Anonymous Coward]

The reality is that the average person does not have enough time to pay attention to what is going on.

Now it's like telco selling me to advertisers

[presidenteloco]

by capturing and voice analysing the words that I express in all my phone calls.

Ok so I know the NSA already has all that stuff, but selling it corporations for profit is over the line.

The bright side is this will spur end-to-end encryption universal adoption like nothing else would.

Re:Now it's like telco selling me to advertisers

[ArmoredDragon]

I don't think it makes sense for ad companies themselves to sell that kind of information. That kind of information is valuable to the ad company for their own purposes, and is devalued if they transfer it to a third party.

For example, why would it make sense for Google to sell information it collects on you? Google sells ad placement services, and if this third party wants access to Google's users for marketing purposes, it will have to buy ad space from Google. So why on earth would Google sell this information to the third party? That would only give the third party the means to compete with them for either providing its own ad placement or selling its own ad placement services, thus eating into Google's ad revenue.

Now if you're not in the business of selling ad space or producing ads, THEN it would make sense.

Re:Now it's like telco selling me to advertisers

[rtb61]

You are talking insane psychopaths driven by insensate greed and this quarters profits. They do not care one iota about consequences, destroy privacy, meh, destroy democracy, meh, destroy the corporations they work for men. They are sick fuckers who revel in the chaos they cause as long as it feeds their greed and ego. Just like this stupid shit, destroy privacy for everyone, meh, bigger bonus, power to spy on everyone, masturbating in the dark looking at others peoples pictures and video and communications, men, women, children. Then the double speak, we will provide more privacy by taking away what little protections are available because er um more privacy in the future, what a crock of shit by an extremely corrupt government.

Re:Now it's like telco selling me to advertisers

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a company in the UK called Phorm, which attempted to perform deep packet inspection on residential and home business owners internet traffic in order to generate advertising revenue. They would match keywords to adverts and if no match was found then a banner advert was left blank. One businessman thought his computer was being hacked because the webpages he visited at work were different from the version he saw at home, including the IP addresses and spent a weekend doing forensics on his system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorm

Re:Now it's like telco selling me to advertisers

[ArmoredDragon]

You are talking insane psychopaths driven by insensate greed and this quarters profits.

Even if this was somewhat accurate, (it's not) shareholders would quickly ditch any stock run by a company that does this, and it would just as quickly crash and burn. The vast majority of shareholders won't buy a lot of shares in a company unless they plan to hold on to it long term (i.e. 3+ years) and 95% of them don't care one way or another about quarterly results, nor do they bother to read 10Qs. ETF/MF/HF managers will, but they typically won't sell off a stock just because a company had a bad quarter.

Google certainly isn't stupid enough to sacrifice long-term viability just for one quarter, neither is any other fortune 500 company. Likewise, I really doubt Google would sell off what is arguably their biggest asset, sacrificing their long-term viability all in the interest of having one phenomenal quarter.

Re:Now it's like telco selling me to advertisers

[rtb61]

Have you been Enroned lately, well, apparently not. How about the bank bail out. How about the credit union crush. How about the dot bomb. Oh look, Wells Fargo. That not enough for you how about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

Typical business plan. Good company, buy it out for more than it is worth, reduce expenditures no matter how destructive that reduction, cheat customers upon a mass scale, repackage with the aid of a corrupt financial institution, who sells it prior to the collapse, run off with profits in offshore tax haven, that financial institution now bets the company will collapse, company collapse, workers and customers screwed as well as the musical chair investors, those idiots who never get a seat at the profit party. Vulture capitalism at it's most typical.

People didn't choose this

[presidenteloco]

What people chose was free and easy

Google, fb, ad-supported websites etc just provide the content and transactions people want, easy and free (as in beer).

People en masse just weren't particularly insightful or wary about what they were selling to get all that free and easy stuff. i.e. a comprehensive profile of themself.

If there was a free, equally easy to get and use (also includes fast, and content-organized) decentralized mesh alternative, people would probably migrate to it. But there isn't. The alternatives all currently fall down in one way or another.

Re:People didn't choose this

[Anonymous Coward]

What people chose was free and easy

... which is merely another way of saying they wanted unending tracking of their behavior with absolutely no limits.

They made their choices, and they got what they asked for.

Major differences.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can choose to use Facebook or Google while I am online or not. If I choose to use Facebook or Google, I can still choose what I do or do not tell them. Google and Facebook are also free with alternatives that are viable and can honestly do without entirely and still go online.

I can not choose whether I want to use my ISP or not to get online, I am required to go through an ISP of some kind to achieve that. Unlike Facebook and Google, I also don't get to choose what I do or do not expose to that service specifically as they, by default, have access to everything I do online at all whether I want them to or not. I also pay to access my ISP with no viable options to get online without an ISP and I lack the option to do without and still get access to websites other than what the ISP owns.

This comes back to the same flawed mindset of "If you don't like your minimum wage job, then go find another one" while neglecting how the market works entirely only worse.

I thought ahead & designed this... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Works vs. what u describe in adtracking + ISP dns requestlogs via APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

Ads/script & malware rob speed/security/privacy

Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

Avoids DNSChangers in routers/IP settings & dns redirects (99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it) + lightens DNS load & resolves faster from local system RAM!

* Via what u NATIVELY have built into the IP stack in FASTER kernelmode.

APK

P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/

What?

[XSportSeeker]

Nice logic there MIT. So, it's better to give them all the keys with the expectation that this administration will somehow make a better more consistent privacy law instead of keeping at least some guarantees that ISPs, the ones that are between you and everything you do on the Internet, won't exploit your data for profit?

What a bunch of bullshit. Look, this isn't your dreamy utopia. Not everything needs to have a "consistent approach", that will never happen, nor we expect it to happen, specially with a government that is essencially stripping citizens of every right they have in favor of corporations and lobbyists.

Keep thinking like that and you'll end up in a dictatorship, whoever blabbed that nonsense.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google and Facebook might be the biggest data aggregators and sellers, but you can choose not to use them.

In theory, maybe, but in practice not so much. The web is effectively broken if you block Google domains. FB is easier to block without damaging your web experience,but it still takes some amount of know--how, and other people often give your data to Facebook without your permission anyway. Employers and schools will give your data to Google.

In practice FB and Google have profiles on everyone who uses the internet, even if you have tried to avoid their products and services.

Since this one's not enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's remove what it does offer, and replace it with *absolutely nothing forever!* Yes! Such genius! How could we not have seen how much safer we'll be with no protections at all instead of not enough!

My eyes are surely open now! Gone are these useless welding gloves, until the time where ones that *can* take several seconds of direct contact with a cutting torch can one day replace them upon my now much safer hands!

Goodbye, glasses! ... somebody shoot these freedom-hating traitors.

They did downmodding you (lol) &? apk

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to continue using the Host File Engine. Your software is well written, functional. The Host File Engine performs exactly as promised by mmell

his hosts program is actually pretty good by xenotransplant

I've never tried to belittle (APK's) work, I've flat out said it's good by BronsCon

take a look at the APK hosts file engine by SuperKendall

APK is kinda right. I've tried his hosts file generating software. It works by bmo

I like your host file system by Karmashock

I find your hosts file admirable by vel-ex-tech

his hosts tool is actually useful for those cases in which one does indeed want to locally block stuff outright while consuming minimum system resources by alexgieg

* Recommended & hosted by Malwarebytes' hpHosts!

APK

P.S.=> You're outnumbered w/ many disagreeing w/ you (want more? Just ask - after all, see subject: Your WISH was granted (lol, to your own dismay - U GOT DOWNMODDED))... apk

Re: They did downmodding you (lol) &? apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because your software works doesn't mean people want to see you hawk it every time anything even tangentially related is discussed.

Re:They did downmodding you (lol) &? apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Slashdot, so spamming is okay now?

Re:They did downmodding you (lol) &? apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Let us know when the Linux port is finally available, AlecStaar. You've only had 20 years to work on it.

(Those of you playing along at home feel free to do a search on "AlecStaar+ArsTechnica" for hours of quality entertainment.)

Re:They did downmodding you (lol) &? apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Your off topic trolling is not ok. You were down moderated for it unidentifiable anonymous troll https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10410029&cid=54109785/ like how arstechnica\CNN was bitchslapped and banned from the whitehouse by President Trump branding them the VERY FAKE news.

Re: They did downmodding you (lol) &? apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit cryin because You're down modded for your off topic unidentifiable anonymous trolling here https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10410029&cid=54109785/ and you cryin more doesn't change that hahahahahaha!

Re:sorry, but most people want that.

[Anonymous Coward]

The world makes a lot more sense when you look to people's real world choices as a measure of what they want. They had choices. They made their choices in ways that favored constant tracking and surveillance.

It makes even more sense when you look at people's ignorance, psychological complexes, and the resulting incompetence in making the simplest choices.

Free, enlightened choice, is very, very far from that. And there is no other kind of choice. Most people today barely make a few true choices in their life.

If you have time and energy to be bitter about it all, you would better to spend them on determining the best ways to solve this situation. Your choice.

Re:sorry, but most people want that.

[messymerry]

Just because they don't actively fight it, does not in any sense mean they "want" it. Also people have the misplaced conception that corporations are respectful. How misguided is that???

Tu quoque

[WaffleMonster]

Forced enslavement of 12 year old children to work coal mines is legal in Oregon so it should be legal in all remaining 49 states.

My neighbors happen to be contract killers so murder should be legal.

Yo Judge!! some dude in front of me was speeding like waaayy faster than me so I shouldn't have to pay this here traffic fine.

Shoplifting should be legal because I live on the west side and EVERYONE else does it.

BUUUTTT MOOOOMMEEEEE!!!! Lil Jimmy did it tooo!!!!!!

2 bucket plan

[doug141]

All the good stuff is in the second bucket we'll pass later. We promise.

People Need Privacy

[BrendaEM]

What non-partizan entity could review anything?

Re: sorry, but most people want that.

[PoopJuggler]

People who use Gmail want their information intercepted and sold by their ISP far and wide to anybody with money?

Re:sorry, but most people want that.

[WaffleMonster]

The world makes a lot more sense when you look to people's real world choices as a measure of what they want. They had choices. They made their choices in ways that favored constant tracking and surveillance.

What people want is separate from what they understand or are willing to accept. Your willfully conflating two unrelated concepts.

Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

are dicks.

Re:Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans have to relearn this every 8 years.

They also probably already have all the logs

[waspleg]

so as soon as the law allows they will sell the history for AI farming.

Time for the FTC to step up

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok FTC, the ball's in your court. Time to do your job, and come up with internet privacy rules.

Use a VPN

[AHuxley]

to keep your data safe from your ISP.
If you have to use Facebook, Google, Microsoft 10, be creative with any data use.
If an ISP, OS and social media want to collect data, let them collect pure fiction.
Maybe some Firefox add on can help with that? A constant stream of social media and web words been created?
TrackMeNot https://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/

Can't argue with that

[Anonymous Coward]

Electronic rights are rights, period. It's high time we make that clear, official, and legally binding. Granted, companies like Facebook might be bankrupt overnight, but what they do is criminal as far as I'm concerned.

Privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be great to have some kind of baseline privacy law in place that prevents organizations we interact with and provide personal information to from exchanging or selling any if that personal information without our explicit consent. That will never happen though since Teaturds would consider that communist.

It would be in most of the Teaturd's best interests though since most are closeted gays who check out gay porn regularly on the web. Here's looking at you Mark Foley, Larry Craig and Tedd Haggard!

What?

[Notabadguy]

Uh...

Some privacy is better than no privacy. Google and Facebook might be the biggest data aggregators and sellers, but you can choose not to use them. You can't choose not to use your ISP. And there's not even competition to choose another ISP if the one you're using decides to collect and sell your information.

It was a good bill.

Flawed logic

[manu0601]

Regulation is not good enough, hence it is good to remove all of it? Sounds like flawed logic to me.

What consistency?

[Anonymous Coward]

... what's really needed is "a more consistent approach to privacy".

Agreed. Discarding current legislation is like asking schoolgirls to be naked until rape-prevention clothes are invented. Worse, the US government has failed to provide a consistent approach before: Gun control, health care, crime-sentencing rules, the EPA and FCC rulings are a patch-work of half-measures ensuring only that rich people aren't pissed-off. These issues, which have a noticeable effect upon society, can't be settled because so many voters think either; change is bad, or big business will save them. On a political level, the USA is disjointed and that lack of unity allows the rich to abuse the rest of society.

Typical American approach to political discussion

[thegarbz]

There's never any phased approaches. There's never chipping away at a problem. There's never gradual introductions. There's never any middle ground.

If it's not perfect don't bother trying. If it doesn't cover everything and 100% of use cases then it should be scrapped.

Its amazing how often I see this argument come up, and not just from the ruling class, but also the ruled class. e.g. when Obama care was being proposed we heard all sorts of arguments from people who didn't understand healthcare systems in other parts of the world implying that it's public or private, but never both.

Same here. Just because I don't have perfect privacy doesn't mean I don't want some efforts made to stem at least some people leaving me alone.

All I want to know is 1 thing (lmao)... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See my subject: Who got BITCHSLAPPED & BANNED from the whitehouse by our great President Trump? CNN (arstechnica), lmao...

* Awwww... (not)!

(CNN/Arstechnica = The VERY FAKE news - like when they were caught using multiple sockpuppet accounts AND editing my posts or impersonating me there)

APK

P.S.=> Biggest bunch of punks & underachiever "not men" I ever ran into online (especially Jeremy the WHIMP Reimer, Fatass PIG Jay Little & "GOITERMAN" Peter "not too" Bright)... apk

Mostly False

[Anonymous Coward]

Mostly False.

Google gets to see what web sites you are visiting to offer "Malicious site warning" via their safe browsing database.. Not just Chrome either. Not to mention sites that use their ads get to track you. And those are just the more obvious ones without mention other obvious ones (gmail, using Google, YouTube, Android operating system, etc. etc. etc. etc.)

Good luck trying to stay off Google's radar. You can't.

And of course, FaceBook is embedded in tons of sites. You think they only track FaceBook users? Not.

Thinking you can decide to evade Google's radar or FaceBook's radar is a fool's errand.

You're assuming people chose with knowledge

[presidenteloco]

but the point is they didn't.

tracking isn't obvious, to a non-technical person.

You can only choose something if you are aware of it.

If you are generally unaware of it or its consequences, then it is choosing (or corralling) you. You aren't choosing it. That was my point.

In such a case, government regulation requiring simple and prominent disclosure of tracking and what its consequences are for you should be in place.

In Other News

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news that, with a little PC spin, can be alleged to be Good News:

- Sickle cell anemia is actually beneficial because it provides partial protection against Malaria!
- Genes that promote fat accumulation are actually beneficial because they provide a defense against famine!
- Senescence and aging at the genetic and cellular level are good because no one lived beyond 40-50 years old in prehistory!

Seriously, does anyone believe that the FCC is going to do anything about the "larger issues" that the MIT Technology Review has identified? The FCC has a new Chair in the form of Ajit Pai who doesn't believe in the mission of the FCC. This isn't an "opportunity to review and tackle the larger issues", this is the "first step in making the FCC crippled, irrelevant, shrunken and ineffective".

Likely Pai would like to disband the FCC entirely but can't be open about that. So his preferred option is to break the organization. Then maybe later he or his successors can propose disbanding the FCC "because the FCC is crippled, irrelevant, shrunken and ineffective".

See how that works?