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FCC's Ajit Pai Says Broadband Market Too Competitive For Strict Privacy Rules (arstechnica.com)
In an op-ed published on the Washington Post, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and his counterpart at the FTC have argued that strict privacy rules for ISPs aren't necessary in part because the broadband market is more competitive than the search engine market. From a report on ArsTechnica: Internet users who have only one choice of high-speed home broadband providers would probably scoff at this claim. But an op-ed written by Pai and Acting FTC Chair Maureen Ohlhausen ignored the lack of competition in home Internet service, focusing only on the competitive wireless broadband market. Because of this competition, it isn't fair to impose different rules on ISPs than on websites, they wrote. "Others argue that ISPs should be treated differently because consumers face a unique lack of choice and competition in the broadband marketplace," Pai and Ohlhausen wrote in their op-ed. "But that claim doesn't hold up to scrutiny either. For example, according to one industry analysis, Google dominates desktop search with an estimated 81 percent market share (and 96 percent of the mobile search market), whereas Verizon, the largest mobile broadband provider, holds only an estimated 35 percent of its market." [...] Instead of addressing the lack of competition in home Internet service, Pai and Ohlhausen simply didn't mention it in their op-ed. But they argued that ISPs shouldn't face stricter privacy rules than search engines and other websites because of the level of competition in broadband and the amount of data companies like Google collect about Internet users. "As a result, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Congress decided to disapprove the FCC's unbalanced rules," they wrote. "Indeed, the FTC's criticism of the FCC's rules last year noted specifically that they 'would not generally apply to other services that collect and use significant amounts of consumer data.'"
Is this still planet Earth, or did I take a wrong turn somewhere? Not even Soviet Russia is sufficient to explain this deranged and tortured argument.
What has one to do with the other? You could just as well have said "No privacy for you because purple monkey dishwasher" and it would have made just about as much sense.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I have access to more than a dozen search engines. I have access to 3 ISPs. Seems like there's more 4x as much competition in the search market, at least in my locality.
My understanding is that I'm lucky to have more than one ISP available, and absolutely blessed to have more than two. Everybody has the same access to search engines, though, and I'm pretty sure nobody has access to more than a dozen ISPs.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Pai is nothing more than a shill for the telecom industry. Another gator added to the swamp by the Hustler in Chief.
Welcome to the Trump Administration where whatever craziness you say is overshadowed by the crazier things the President says. He says that the broadband market is more competitive than the search engine market and (because of this) ISPs should be allowed to sell privacy data of their customers.
First of all let's address the main problem with his argument which is the false comparison. There are only a few players in the search engine market which is true; however, that is due to competition based on consumer choices. Many consumer choose to use Google over Bing. Many consumers cannot choose one ISP over another as there is often only one choice. Indeed if a consumer chooses to switch to Bing, it is as simple as not using Google. Many consumers cannot switch ISPs. Second whether or not Google has more of a marketshare than Bing does not mean Comcast can sell your browsing history.
The main problem with comparing whether Google has a right to sell your data and Comcast does not all comes down to implied agreements. When you use Google for free, it is with the implied consent that your search history is being collected and monetized in exchange for the search service. When you pay Comcast for an Internet connection, there is no implied consent that you paying for a service means that Comcast makes money on your Internet data.
Personally the sale of data is blatant attempt by ISPs to make more money by trying to legislate an exception to the rules. Their argument is that "Google does it, so should we."
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The Internet is no longer a niche only a few people care about (see SOPA). Republicans are in for a surprise when democrats run ads with this shit against them and it proves to be effective. Trumps own base is against this. FFS INFOWARS is against it.
This issue is an overwhelming loser with the public. Nobody believes ISPs should be allowed to stalk you online and no amount of weaving shit into gold is going to mask the smell. From what I remember public polling on this was something like 11% of the general public favoring the republican bill.
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
I don't often get to trot that out one.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
When all traffic is encrypted what will they regulate then?
That's an easy one: Encryption.
I don't know what the man is talking about; I have only one choice of broadband provider - Comcast. At my last residence, I had only one choice of broadband provider - Verizon. Is he saying that I have "choice" because I can relocate my household if I want to change ISPs?
Service providers are in privileged positions: Doctors, lawyers, banks, telephones, internet
Because of those privileged positions, service providers are limited in what they can do with the private information they are privy to through their privileged position
Imagine if your doctor, while treating you, was building a profile of your particular health problems, your family life, and any other personal information that they could gather from you through their conversations with you about medical problems, possible causes, and potential solutions. Imagine then if your doctor then used this profile to send you targeted advertisements in the mail, and made automated phone calls to your phone, trying to sell you goods and services related to what the doctor knew about you from you profile. Further imagine if your doctor was free to sell your profile to anyone else, so that they too could contact you and try to sell you goods and services, or use this information for any other purpose.
Imagine if your lawyer, while helping you with your legal affairs, was building a profile of you and your particular personal and business relationships. Imagine if that lawyer then used that profile to call you up from time to time, and offer to solve other problems that they inferred you had, and to send you e-mail, postal mail, and even automated phone calls advertising their services in areas that they thought you might need based on their personal knowledge of you. Imagine still further if your lawyer made your profile available for sale to others who wanted to know more about you and your personal and business affairs.
Imagine if your bank, privy to all of the entities with whom you exchange payments for personal and business matters, used their knowledge of those payment exchanges to build a profile on you, which they then used to target you and your family for marketing purposes, selling you goods and services they thought you might be interested in based on your current payment exchanges. Imagine still further if they then made this profile available to the whomever else wanted to pay for it, so that these 3rd parties too could understand your personal and business payment relationships, and use that information for whatever purposes these 3rd parties chose.
Imagine if the telephone company was allowed to monitor your daily phone conversations using automated voice to text transcriptions, to amass a profile on you based on who you talked to about what, and then use that information to market goods and services to you that they thought might be helpful or useful to you. Imagine still further that they sold this profile to whomever else wanted to know with whom you spoke, and what you talked about, on a daily and continual basis.
Out of these analogies, the most direct one for internet service providers is to telephone service providers, but all of the others are applicable too, because the information that we communicate through Internet connections includes communications to all of these service providers. Telephone service providers are not allowed to monitor the content of our telephone calls, and they are even limited in what they can do with the signal information (who we are calling). Internet services have a direct logical equivalent to dialing a telephone call and holding a conversation; its the connectionless and connection-oriented streams of data packets that form a logical unit corresponding to a telephone call. If we donâ(TM)t allow telephone companies to monitor our telephone calls and use the information regarding what we talked about (or even who we called), why does it suddenly become âoeokâ to allow an Internet service provider to do so?
An Internet service pr