Slashdot Mirror
'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."
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."
Did someone leave a window open? It seems a little shilly in here.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
Nope, no sig
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.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
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.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
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.
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???
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
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!!!!!!
All the good stuff is in the second bucket we'll pass later. We promise.
What non-partizan entity could review anything?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
People who use Gmail want their information intercepted and sold by their ISP far and wide to anybody with money?
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.
so as soon as the law allows they will sell the history for AI farming.
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/
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.
Regulation is not good enough, hence it is good to remove all of it? Sounds like flawed logic to me.
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.
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.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?