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ISPs Claim a Privacy Law Would Weaken Online Security, Increase Pop-Ups (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The country's biggest Internet service providers and advertising industry lobby groups are fighting to stop a proposed California law that would protect the privacy of broadband customers. AT&T, Comcast, Charter, Frontier, Sprint, Verizon, and some broadband lobby groups urged California state senators to vote against the proposed law in a letter Tuesday. The bill would require Internet service providers to obtain customers' permission before they use, share, or sell the customers' Web browsing and application usage histories. California lawmakers could vote on the bill Friday of this week, essentially replicating federal rules that were blocked by the Republican-controlled Congress and President Trump before they could be implemented. The text and status of the California bill, AB 375, are available here.
The letter claims that the bill would "lead to recurring pop-ops to consumers that would be desensitizing and give opportunities to hackers" and "prevent Internet providers from using information they have long relied upon to prevent cybersecurity attacks and improve their service." The Electronic Frontier Foundation picked apart these claims in a post yesterday. The proposed law won't prevent ISPs from taking security measures because the bill "explicitly says that Internet providers can use customer's personal information (including things like IP addresses and traffic records) 'to protect the rights or property of the BIAS [Broadband Internet Access Service] provider, or to protect users of the BIAS and other BIAS providers from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful use of the service,'" EFF Senior Staff Technologist Jeremy Gillula wrote.
The letter claims that the bill would "lead to recurring pop-ops to consumers that would be desensitizing and give opportunities to hackers" and "prevent Internet providers from using information they have long relied upon to prevent cybersecurity attacks and improve their service." The Electronic Frontier Foundation picked apart these claims in a post yesterday. The proposed law won't prevent ISPs from taking security measures because the bill "explicitly says that Internet providers can use customer's personal information (including things like IP addresses and traffic records) 'to protect the rights or property of the BIAS [Broadband Internet Access Service] provider, or to protect users of the BIAS and other BIAS providers from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful use of the service,'" EFF Senior Staff Technologist Jeremy Gillula wrote.
If web browsers removed the code that implements popups, then it would be far less likely that they show up, regardless of what privacy laws are in place.
" Privacy laws directly attack one of our income streams, our ability to collect, store, and sell your personal information"
I had no idea what saint my ISP is. Just think how many ads and how much spam you'd get if they did NOT sell your personal information to advertisers and spammers.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Would you actually want their lips on your testicles?
I think I'd rather get it done by ten dollar prostitute with cold sores, she'd be cleaner.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In Canada, the Canadian Constitution mandates Privacy.
People spend years handling the privacy popups required.
Oh. Wait. They don't. They just say "No" once and then the ads can't steal their info.
Hmmm.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Privacy laws will also cause you to become sterile. You can look it up.
You are welcome on my lawn.
As a direct result of your efforts, I just clicked over to the EFF site to sign up to do recurring monthly donations to them.
I've had a vague intention to do so for a while, but thanks much for pushing me into action.
5x dipping. They often recive government subsidies as well.
The bill would require Internet service providers to obtain customers' permission before they use, share, or sell the customers' Web browsing ....
In addition to REQUIRING customers' permission, I suggest they add the following to the law:
Because you ain't gonna do anything about it you cuck.
These fuckers... they really think people are idiots to beliebe in such outlandish claims.
WE NEED TO COLLECT YOUR DATA AND SELL IT FOR YOUR PRIVACY AND SECURITY
What's next? We need to double the price or your current plan because that prevents you from wasting it all on booze and drugs?
Regarding pop-ups, IMO the whole "click to agree to this legally binding document" idea should be rethought. It's far too easy to embed all sorts of nasty stuff in EULA's and most people can't fully understand the implications even if they do take the time to skim/read through it.
That would be like programmers saying: hey, read through the source code at this github address and if you click I Agree, then you are declaring you are ok with whatever the code is doing with your system/data, for better or worse. You don't understand it? Ah well, too bad. Hire a programmer to try and figure it out.
The right to privacy and security should be inalienable rights, impervious to click-wrap agreements.
Why is this the dilemma presented. We get user privacy at the cost of a parade of pop up windows. Really? Maaaaaybe you could decide to not spam your customers with popup windows.
This is how bullies talk: don't make me hurt you!
The sooner ISPs become regulated as utilities, the better.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Sigh.... I miss the old time trolls, like OOG the Internet Caveman, The Glorious MEEPT!, The "IF I EVER MEET YOU I WILL KICK YOUR ASS" guy....
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Over here in Europe we've got a crazy law requiring websites to ask visitor consent before placing tracking cookies. Now all websites have popups. You can't refuse the cookies like envisioned by the privacy lobbyists when drafting the bill. You can either accept or leave the site. The law is a useless disaster doing absolutely nothing for privacy. It just annoys everybody.
Needless to say, lots of people now just use a browser plugin to just accept the cookies blindly.
Also please note this isn't a browser window popping up of course. It's an overlay over the web page.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
At&t and Google fiber are the worst at this, selling as much data as they can to advertisers. I expect this law to result in At&T raising prices and Google fiber leaving the state.