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Seattle Restored ISP Privacy Rules in the First Local Blow To Trump's Rollback (fastcompany.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A majority of Americans from both parties objected to a law passed by Congress and signed by President Trump in April that gives internet service providers the go-ahead to collect and sell users' browsing history without users' consent. This week, Seattle became the first municipality in the country to fight that rollback, in effect restoring ISP privacy rules for city residents under municipal code. The city's Cable Customer Bill of Rights, dating back to 1999, gives the city authority to set privacy standards over cable providers. In a new rule added on Wednesday on the urging of Mayor Ed Murray, cable internet providers must obtain opt-in consent from users before collecting their web-browsing history or other internet usage data, including details on a person's health and finances.
It should be called Republican rollback. Trump probably https://politics.slashdot.org/... no idea what an ISP does!
This is exactly what "states rights", etc. are all about. The creeping definition of "interstate commerce" has resulted in too much centralized bureaucracy that doesn't understand the real impact.
We need to roll back the authoritarians at the Fed (on both sides) and instead allow states to determine the rules.
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
Nope, states have jurisdiction over themselves not the federal government.
You should obey the law of the state you are in and stop trying to act like the US is one state.
There's no legal pot in Texas for instance, but Colorado? It's legal, and no I don't mean medicinal.
The ISP argument will be that only the FCC or Congress have the authority to regulate these aspects of their business.
This is no blow to Trump. It shows what he did might make more sense than some (even myself) thought. If states can regulated it, then the feds don't need to. If states choose different models, then we might find the best one and others will follow.
States deciding the issue for themselves is exactly the kind of thing Trump expected would happen, so this isn't any kind of resistance.
As a Californian, I hope Trump stays consistent with the state's rights theme and allows my state to continue setting our own auto emissions standards which 13 other states have adopted.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Yea, States rights were EVIL before Trump was elected, now all sorts of people have had whiplash change of mind or are "rediscovering" Federalism. Bottom line...many people LOVE Federal power when their people are in charge and LOVE states rights and decentralized power when their people are NOT in power. It's hypocritical, but then why should that surprise me?
Opt-in consent = signing a subscriber agreement.
This, right here.
Not everything has to be ruled-over by the federal government (see also the whole Federalism thing itself). Personally, de-centralization is a *good* thing in this case, as it will force ISPs (well, those who operate in multiple states) to unify their rules under a 'most-restrictive' policy, if only to prevent excess expense in having to maintain/keep up separate policies for separate states/municipalities.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Expensive, yes. "nicer places to live"? Maybe not.
Sure, they have all the cultural goodies and conveniences that one may want, but they also have correspondingly higher crime rates, denser living conditions, nastier traffic conditions, more pollution (in general), far more restrictive environments for small business owners, excessive taxation, a more restrictive set of rules/laws on one's personal conduct, etc.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I doubt it... the FCC generally has no problems with a locality being more restrictive on an ISPs conduct than federal rules, since there's no violation of what the FCC is trying to accomplish.
By way of example, I direct you to Coho - a local wireless ISP in Oregon (so, not just an ISP, but one that rents radio spectrum). Coho specifically blocks all peer-to-peer (read: BitTorrent) traffic. They proudly say so on that link I posted.
Now one would think that, under your theory, the FCC would get mad at that. Turns out, they don't care, and haven't for years.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Illinois isn't a blue state. Illinois is red with two blue spots on it - that happen to have huge populations.
In that sense, so is Oregon (Portland, Salem, Bend), California (SanFran Metro, LA Metro, San Diego Metro), Washington (SeaTac and maybe one other metro area), and likely lots of other states just like it. :)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Collectively, ISPs already wield an alarming amount of power in DC. An individual ISP in a single state though probably has even more influence, given the number of local people they employ, the grip on infrastructure they hold, and how much easier it is to grease the palms of local politicians (though they don't seem to have a problem buying congress-critters). And precisely because I may live in one state that protects my privacy, but a company I'm doing business with is headquartered in a state that does not, this actually is an interstate commerce issue.
Unless you are proposing that state laws mandate a company that collects personal data must abide by the state privacy laws of all users' state of origin?
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
"States can" isn't necessarily a good motto for why federal shouldn't
That's cute, A complete opposite of what the Constitution actually says in the 10th Amendment. It says (basically) that unless it is specifically authorized by the Constitution, it is reserved to the States and People. The real reason for the Civil War wasn't slavery (and white supremacy), it was Federal supremacy. We won the battle (slavery), but lost the war (tyranny) in the process. We're just discovering how costly that loss really was.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I wish I could have modded this up!
Exactly the point, though.... Federal govt. really shouldn't be passing blanket laws over small details on how business is done. It has a role to play when it comes to regulating interstate commerce, since that pits state against state otherwise, trying to determine if some transaction is allowed and who is in the wrong, if not.
But when I pay for broadband internet access, I do so from a company doing business in my own town, subject to a lot of local regulation. Federal govt. really shouldn't have to intervene with any of this stuff.
I think in many ways, we got lost in the whole concept of Federally regulated monopolies. (Essentially, we made the leap of logic that because it was Federal govt. who had to grant a company monopoly status, that automatically meant it was Federal who got to give it rules on how it should operate.) When you think about it, the realities of the marketplace help illustrate why that's rather flawed. (We still have local and state governments placing rules and restrictions on monopolies all the time. There's no way Federal govt. is even capable of micro-managing things at the level needed for your power companies, water and gas companies, or cable companies.) May as well just let the states and cities dictate ALL of the terms and conditions of service since they've been dictating quite a bit of them anyway, all along.
No, it does not say that states have rights, only that the constitution was a limit on federal rights.
The 10th Amendment, in its entirety: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.[5]
Dumbass.
Yes, you are, indeed! Powers not delegated BY THE CONSTITUTION to the Federal Government are reserved to the States OR TO THE people. If it's not called out in the Constitution - it's for the States OR the people. Meaning the power can be for the States OR the people. Kind of hard to twist those words in the 10th Amendment, but you keep trying, AC, you keep trying!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!