www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki
====================================================
Congress just killed your Internet privacy protections
by Seth
Fiegerman @sfiegerman
March 28, 2017: 6:06 PM ET
The future of online privacy is now
in President Trump's hands.
The House of Representatives voted Tuesday to repeal
Internet privacy protections that were approved
by the Federal Communications Commission in the final days of the Obama
administration.
The Senate voted
along party lines to undo the rules last week. The resolution now goes to Trump's
desk. The White House said Tuesday it "strongly supports" the repeal.
Providers would also have been required to notify customers
about the types of information collected and shared.
The privacy rules were intended to give consumers extra
control over their personal data online at a time when everything from
smartphones to refrigerators can be connected to the Internet.
Opponents of the privacy rules argued it would place an
undue burden on broadband providers while leaving large Internet companies like
Facebook (FB,
Tech30)
and Google (GOOGL,
Tech30)
free to collect user data without asking permission.
Representative Michael Burgess, a Republican, described the
rules as "duplicative regulation" on the House floor and said the
repeal would "level the playing field for an increasingly anti-competitive
market."
But rather than apply similar protections to more
businesses, the Republican-controlled Congress voted to scrap the rules
entirely.
Democrats and privacy advocates have argued this approach
effectively hands over the customer's personal information to the highest
bidder.
"It totally wipes out privacy protections for consumers
on the Internet," Democratic Representative Anna Eshoo said on the floor.
"I don't want anyone to take my information and sell it to someone and
make a ton of money off of it just because they can get their mitts on
it."
Michael Capuano, a Democratic Representative, took it one
step further. "Just last week, I bought underwear on the internet,"
he said. "Why should you know what size I take, or the color, or any of
that information?
Many broadband providers already share some of their
customers' browsing behavior with advertisers. Providers typically offer the
choice to opt out, but consumers may not even be aware of this data collection
-- let alone how to get out of it.
With Facebook and Google, weary users may choose to limit
their activity on the sites or switch to rival services. But switching
providers is often difficult, as is hiding your Internet activity from your
Internet provider.
"Most people can't simply walk away from their Internet
service provider," says Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel at the
ACLU. "They need the Internet and they may not have another option."
A virtual private network, or VPN, is one option to protect your
online activity. One service, NordVPN, says it has seen a
"sharp increase" in consumer interest in the days since the Senate
vote.
The repeal is a big win for large providers like AT&T (T,
Tech30)
and Verizon (VZ,
Tech30).
They have bet billions on content, including AT&T's pending acquisition of
Time Warner, the parent company of CNN.
This content can potentially be paired with subscriber data
to build up lucrative targeted advertising businesses that compete with Google
and Facebook.
"I don't think of it as game over," says Guliani,
who predicts Republicans will face pushback from their constituents for the
privacy vote. "I think of it as a setback."
CNNMoney (New York) First published
March 28, 2017: 6:06 PM ET
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