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Billboards Target Lawmakers Who Voted To Let ISPs Sell User Information (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the fight-for-the-future dept.

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.

2 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Electronic adverts listing consumers purchases by mikael · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  2. Re:What a load of garbage. by JohnFen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.