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Billboards Target Lawmakers Who Voted To Let ISPs Sell User Information (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: When Congress voted in March to block FCC privacy rules and let internet service providers sell users' personal data, it was a coup for the telecom industry. Now, the nonprofit, pro-privacy group Fight for the Future is publicizing just how much the industry paid in an attempt to sway those votes. The group unveiled four billboards, targeting Reps. Marsha Blackburn and John Rutherford, as well as Sens. Jeff Flake and Dean Heller. All four billboards, which were paid for through donations, were placed in the lawmakers' districts. "Congress voting to gut Internet privacy was one of the most blatant displays of corruption in recent history," Fight for the Future co-founder Tiffiniy Cheng said in a statement on the project. The billboards accuse the lawmakers of betraying their constituents, and encourage passersby to call their offices.
Good.
The flaw in this tactic is that it requires the person discussed on the billboard to be able to feel shame at the things they do in their official capacity.
Since politics has turned into a spectator sport where people choose what team to support like they were a football franchise, shame and an ability to look down upon the choices made has evaporated.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
so safe she was mentioned as a VP possibility for Trump. maybe all four have little reason to worry about reelection.
When I read the title, I thought these billboards would be electronic adverts listing the persons most recent purchases or targeted ads for health problems. I bet if that happened, they would soon push for legislation.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Like, perchance, these congressperson's home addresses and phone numbers. Maybe their kids' names and birthdates.
After all, what's sauce for the goose...
#DeleteChrome
Do the billboards also mention that the rules had not been in effect yet, so the vote removed future restrictions and actually changed nothing for how things currently are? I'm all for privacy, but let's stop inflating what this vote actually did. It did not open the spigots for something that had not already been possible/happening.
Dean Heller is one of my Senators and until this, I naively thought he was one of the "good_guys"... Looks like I was wrong... Wonder how much he got for his vote for selling us out? hehe maybe I'll call his office and ask that VERY question... Of course, his staff won't have the answer (or at least won't give it to a *mere* pleeb such as I)...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
"Half baked policies and laws that have no real end effect for the user shouldn't be allowed. We already have enough rules without more ineffective ones."
Yup, we need less bad rules and more good ones.
The Congress of the United States is the greatest threat to the United States.
At least we are not just taking it. This gets people talking, and that's a start. Better late than never. Maybe this will open the floodgates. Fingers crossed.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Well, AC, you seem to be missing the forest for the trees.
When someone points their browser at the Mayo Clinic's web site and searches for early signs of breast cancer, their ISP can make inferences about them that Google and Facebook can't.
They don't have to use Facebook. Lots of people don't. They don't have to use google either. They may have a priori knowledge about web sites like WebMD, their local Ford dealer, or their favorite porn site.
"Protection" from Google and Facebook are also important, but not nearly as important as being sure their ISP can't give or sell information about their browsing history or to whom they sent email.
Because it's nobody's fucking business except their own. The fact that the new rules hadn't taken affect yet is neither here nor there. The rules have to start sometime though, and the sooner the better.
10-15 years ago our sales rep for our JTAG debugger was Jeff Flake (not the congressclown). This guy was great. He knew his stuff, and if I asked him a question he didn't know he'd find out and let me know (we were trying to automate test scripts via Perl with a COM library developed in house. Basically guessing how the JTAG debugger internals works and asking Jeff when we guessed wrong).
It pisses me off to see congressclown Jeff bring down the awesome Jeff Flake the sales represenative.
I can opt into Google if I consider them trustworthy. If where I live there's only evil choice A for ISP in my area (very common), or even if there's also an evil choice B, I still have no choice. You also ignore the confidence/protection codified law brings. While before the rule there was nothing prohibiting selling user data, there was also nothing giving permission to do so either. Lawyers make much of their money off such ambiguity.
Internet connectivity is no more optional than phone service is optional. This was one of the drivers behind common-carrier status for ISPs. It's illegal to buy/sell phone records without the record holder's permission or a writ from a court. The privacy law was meant to bring ISPs into parity with telcos. Given that Internet communications often include substantially more sensitive data than phone records, that protection was crucial.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
the problem is, the people that voted these asswipes in, are the majority. the majority is stupid and apathetic, need proof? see point #1
This one comes to mind. It's a good way to protest. Gets a lot of attention for relatively little cash.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Makes me tempted to do a few "Go fund mes" for some things. I got buddies with illnesses that are gonna be high and dry (read:dead) if the ACA gets repealed. And no, it's not "Bad Livin'" it's genetic. But yeah, there's a Republican Congressman who blamed it on that while pinky swearing he'd give guys like my friend a pass. Only thing is that's not what happened pre-ACA. Wish more people would just say "You Lie!" to these guys.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
just favored one set of corporations over another.
In a sense, but there's a very huge difference between Google, etc., and ISPs. While I agree that the all behave terribly, Google, Facebook, etc., are different animals than ISPs are and it's not so crazy that regulations between the two groups should not be identical.
ISPs are like the phone company -- they supply the pipe. Google, Facebook, etc., supply stuff that flows through the pipe, like services that you would call through your telephone.
Pipes should be hands-off and not look at anything you do that isn't required to keep the pipes working well, just like the telephone.
One of the evil things the telecoms keep doing is conflating these two things, as if Facebook and ISPs somehow are engaging in the same sort of business. They're not. Not even close.
That will have an effect
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Doxxing people? Telling someone who their elected representative is is doxxing now? I thought that was public election results.
Rescinding rules that were never put into effect shouldn't cause internet butthurt, but it does.
It's because all those AOL users were let on. Now they've bred.
My first thought was "at least more websites are serving content over HTTPS so all the ISP will get is the domain, not the content", and then I decided to check. It turns out xhamster values your privacy more than both WebMD and Mayo Clinic.
It's a start. You have to start at one hole. Else you just lament that there's hundreds of holes without improving the situation in any way.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Google, Facebook, etc. are allowed to sell your data?
Google, Facebbook, etc Don't sell your data. They make money off your data. They collate it, package it in an API, then provide 3rd parties the ability to get in the faces of people who match the their requirements. Google and Facebook are valued based on the data they have that no one else does. Their core business is about extracting value out of this data without giving it away.
ISP's core business is selling subscription services to the end user. The ability to sell your data to whoever will pay is just a sweetener and they have no incentive to keep your data "semi-private".
Are you high on something? These people allegedly represent me, they are allegedly my employee. How stupid does one has to be to consider it a good thing that some employee essentially gets paid by a competing organization to work against the interests of his employer?
Such an employee should be fired.
Out of a cannon.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
ISPs are like the phone company -- they supply the pipe. Google, Facebook, etc., supply stuff that flows through the pipe, like services that you would call through your telephone.
Unless you count Google Fiber or Free Basics.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".