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California May Restore Broadband Privacy Rules Killed By Congress and Trump (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A proposed law in California would require Internet service providers to obtain customers' permission before they use, share, or sell the customers' Web browsing history. The California Broadband Internet Privacy Act, a bill introduced by Assembly member Ed Chau (D-Monterey Park) on Monday, is very similar to an Obama-era privacy rule that was scheduled to take effect across the US until President Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress eliminated it. If Chau's bill becomes law, ISPs in California would have to get subscribers' opt-in consent before using browsing history and other sensitive information in order to serve personalized advertisements. Consumers would have the right to revoke their consent at any time. The opt-in requirement in Chau's bill would apply to "Web browsing history, application usage history, content of communications, and origin and destination Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of all traffic." The requirement would also apply to geolocation data, IP addresses, financial and health information, information pertaining to minors, names and billing information, Social Security numbers, demographic information, and personal details such as physical addresses, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers.
I know where I'd like to setup a new VPN service.
Its not really the history aspect that concerns me. Its the potential of throttling netflix or hulu, paid "fast lanes" and ISP's potential to shut down site's they dont agree with that concerns me.
Google is CA company, they can continue as always.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It's nice of them to do this, but it seems to me that having an opt-in will still basically force people to allow it due to few viable alternatives.
Saddam had VPNs.
Suck on my DAMN balls
Something like this should never have been set at a national level to begin with. Let states decide what makes sense from a privacy standpoint and then consumers can decide where they want to live based on restrictions they have to liver under making sense or not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"By clicking you are agreeing to use our services. Click "no thanks" at the bottom if you do not agree."
And when you click "no thanks" you are brought to a blank page.
If you agree, you get these constant emails stating the the terms and conditions have changed. And then you have to read hundreds of pages of legaleese. Apple, eBay, PayPal, .... all of them are fuckers who are out to fuck us.
That's how these fuckers work. It's their way or nothing.
I think EULA's should be deemed not enforceable just for that fact.
EULA == EVIL.
At the same time they kill our second amendment rights.
Would you rather Trump later on passes some kind of regulation that all ISPs must send all customer data to the RNC for targeting voters? I don't see any reason he could not do so, since after all he controls appointments to the FCC.
Now he has not done so and probably would not, but you are supporting the kind of system that makes that reality way more possible than I personally am comfortable with.
You should never support a system that is so powerful where it actually matters who gets elected to control it.
Or to reduce the point to something you might be able to comprehend I give you The Link Of Clarity.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Except for the whole cost of living thing, Northern California is looking nicer and nicer form here in my Republican controlled moral cesspool. (Which is probably part of the reason cost of living is so high.) But it isn't like I could afford the house I own in the nice neighborhood a mile from downtown SLC if I were to buy it today either. It has gone up 182% in value since I bought it 7 years ago during the tail end of the housing crisis.
Every great once and a while California does something right.
IANAL, obviously, but often state regs do get tossed by the courts when they drift into areas already regulated by the feds. I would personally much prefer to have my privacy protected anywhere I am in the country so I would like to see this nonsense outlawed by the FCC. That said, there is no reason you can apply substantial taxes to something that you can't regulate. No reason not to apply sales tax to the sale of all personal data if we can't regulate it. These advertising companies are benefiting from our educated citizenry and able to sell more stuff because of our roads they ship the stuff over. Let these low-life spam merchants pay the cost of our roads and schools like everyone else does.
We interrupt our daily, reflexive dose of Trump bashing to attempt to have a legitimate conversation. Like too many things on modern slashdot, this post starts off with the bashing of all things Trump and non-liberal ideology, instead of actually just talking about the issues in an honest way, and evaluating the proposed solutions to get to the truth.
A little investigation yields that there are elements of hyperbole and FUD in the article and the issue general. At the simplest level, it seems easy to feed into the wrong-headed narrative that Trump and conservatives are anti-liberty, even thought the opposite is generally true. A deeper look into the issue has more nuance. Almost as if people are not cartoon villains and have different perspectives in looking out for the greater well being. Almost.
The counter argument is that the Obama era bill only provided protections against what ISP companies can do with your data. In limiting the scope, it actually opened the door for other companies like say M.S., Apple, or Alphabet to be a little more nefarious in their data collection rules. The current rules in house GLB Act and the existing FCC standards on the book already provided larger scale protections than the new rules, so replacing them is actually harmful to consumer.
Now, I am not a lawyer, and I will admit to not being the 'net expert of many of the readers of these forums. If the existing rules do not go far enough I am happy to hear an honest non-partisan name calling discussion about why. I am also curious to see if the new California bill actually improves things, or if it is well meaning but damaging?
Worse, is it a bill that sounds nice, but when you look at it, it was written by tech sector lobbyists to gather more data? I guess I am really struck by the line Nick Fury says in the Avengers, "you say you want peace, but I think you mean that other thing."
In case you are curious, here is a link discussing the other side of the issue. I am sure that there are others.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundi...
The question becomes, are people on these forums remotely interested in finding answer to issues, or is it going to be non-stop tribalism all the time?
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
So, we have another Obama Era rule that never applied for a single day of Obama's eight years in Office?
Might have been harder to just toss the Rule on the ash-heap of history if it had been effect already, as opposed to being something that wouldn't inconvenience the Obama White House in any way....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
States need to step up in the absence of a fully functioning federal government, on this and a great many other things.
It has been observed that we have now been without a President for nearly six months, cabinet positions in the executive branch have either been allowed to stand vacant, (with inadequately vetted, less than fully qualified or competent underlings forced to do the jobs of their former bosses,) or filled either with complete incompetent morons, or people whose purpose in life before appointment was fighting the very agencies they now "lead", or both. MEANWHILE, the US Congress is itself in crisis, as doddering old men who need their lines whispered into their ears, people who are bought-and-paid for and only represent their donors' interests, bicker and get a whole lot of nothing done, except when they can manage to force something through but it is almost never a good thing that they do.
MEANWHILE, the court system tries to hold out against the tide of destruction of our governmental institutions, but it too will succumb over time as the corrupt, Gas & Oil Party ("GOP") gets to appoint its own judges, while the Demonrat Party tries and fails again and again to stop them because they're weak, also bought, corrupt, useless, and what's worse, the people they had been counting on to vote for them all this while KNOW IT, and THAT, friends, is why the Repulsiveans win... they cheat. They screw over their constituents (and the nation, and the world and all the people and animals and plants etc. thereon,) who are too stupid to know they shouldn't vote for them. The Demonrat Party's biggest problem is that their average voter isn't as stupid as the Repulseans' voters, and knows that voting Demonrat is pointless and a waste of time, leading to lower turnout.
By the way, they're going to get CREAMED in 2018, because the people in the party itself are stupid and incapable of learning from their mistakes, and so they will make the same mistakes over and over and over and over..., like when they ran the most deeply-flawed, pro-corporate, racist, sexist, shrill, unpopular, BITCHY candidate they could find in their "party," and she lost to a MONSTER, which is EMBARRASSING
SO... Bottom Line: US states need now to start to step up and fulfill the role abdicated by the federal government, and start to do things for themselves. My prediction is they will, with California leading the way, I suspect, and stop sending the federal government money, and be prepared for the federal government to stop funding the states, and prepare for another civil war.
Best thing for California to do, really, as it's often decried and derided by the drooling, pin-headed morons in flyover states as being full of hippies and stoners and so-called "illegal" immigrants, and so on, who live in states that are THEMSELVES welfare queens, taking more in federal funds than they give back in anything useful or taxes, UNLIKE California.
California is the state America was supposed to grow up to be, and it needs to start acting like a nation, since the federal government is in the process of collapsing, and probing new depths of utter uselessness. I give it a few more years at the outside. I am convinced that the only way America as a country survives Trump's tenure as Russian Puppet in Chief, is if the tenure ends early, followed by the immediate resignations of most of the federal government, so they can be replaced by people who are NOT so corrupt and useless.
Else it will continue to fall apart, like Somalia.
California may restore broadband privacy rules that basically gave Google a legal monopoly and the right to steal whatever they wanted from the user?
While most people are in favor of rules that enforces the privacy of the users, the proposed law actually excluded Google (BY NAME) and even protected the company from any legal liability if it violated other laws.
It should be illegal to access any of that information without a warrant, period.
If this passes I'm moving to California. I'm sick of being spied on..
No doubt Obummer will retire there.
Remember, the rules that were recently rolled back were themselves a rollback of previous privacy protections that were arguably much better.
The FCC and FTC are in the process now of restoring the privacy regulations dismantled over the past few years.
Yes, it's unfortunate that this has gotten so complicated, such a story of double and triple negatives. In short, though, Congress and the president worked to undo the previous undoing of privacy rules. It's part of an effort to make internet privacy regulations stronger, not weaker.
or is it going to be non-stop tribalism all the time?
Many partisan democrats are saying put Pence in charge. What d'you think is tribal about that? Trump is a fucking psychotic, narcissistic man child, and is utterly, utterly incompetent.
"Trump bashing". He's the worst president you dumb fucks have ever elected. He makes GW Bush look smart, for fuck's sake.
...just pull out of California.
HA HA AH HA,,, pure gold right there.....
EVERY person who chooses to use Facebook or MySpace or Google or any number of other free services has chosen to give up their privacy.
WTF.. get with the program... If the service is free, YOU are the product.
Despite all the hype, the rules were never put in place. They were proposed rules that were not adopted.
Or was this before when he was a civilian and was referred to by his name only?
The US Constitution explicitly lists all the stuff the federal government is supposed to do, leaving the reader to assume anything else is clearly the purvue of the states and individual citizens. When the Bill of Rights was added, this arrangement was made explicit in the form of the 10th Amendment. For decades, Democrats have insisted that the 10th Amendment is nearly meaningless as they injected the federal government into nearly everything. When right wingers complained that some stuff was not the business of the feds, the Democrats called them crazy or even down-right un-American. When TEA Partiers kept yelling about the 10th Amendment as Obama took over student loans, grabbed the car companies from their share holders, and jammed Obamacare through to federalize healthcare, they were called racists.
Now that the far left idiots of the bay area are no longer happy with Washington DC under its new management, they suddenly seem to appreciate the 10th. As a right-leaner who lives in California and opposed the Obama rule as a federal overreach, I heartily embrace this move - with ONE CAVEAT: The rule should not only apply to companies that tend to support Republicans (the Telcos) but should also apply to the Democrat-supporting companies that actually know more about us: Facebook, Google, and Apple.
I will not be shocked if the hypocritical Dems expose themselves by claiming they're all for protecting our privacy while NOT applying these rules to the companies most in need of them, but who buy this insulation with partisan political contributions.