Trump supports repeal of Internet privacy protections

As the Washington Post noted: “Tuesday’s vote may release internet providers from the FCC’s privacy regulation, but the FTC would also be unable to enforce its own guidelines on the industry without new authority from Congress”.

Null agreed. “I don’t think the FCC is thinking a whole lot about the privacy shield, and there wasn’t a lot about it in the record, and I think that’s probably a mistake given that the rolling back of the privacy rules will probably have a pretty serious impact on worldwide business”, he said. And consumer advocates worry that the companies will be an enticing target for hackers.

The Republicans, in this nearly entirely partisan vote done quietly on Tuesday, argued that they wished to “streamline” all United States internet privacy regulation under the FTC, rather than have it split between the FCC and the FTC. The first “not” in the sentence should be deleted.

Despite such overwhelming public sentiment, Republican majorities in both the House and Senate have voted in recent days to scuttle the privacy protections authorized last October by the Federal Communications Commission, protections that were scheduled to take effect later this year.

A resolution bars the FCC from ever introducing such protections for consumers again.

They build substantial datasets on the online activities of certain demographics, say 18 year-olds who spend four hours a day reading about One Direction.

Critics nevertheless argued that the FCC had fashioned its rules all wrong. “One would hope – because consumers want their privacy protected – that they would be good actors, and they would ask permission and do these nice things”, said Doyle. New aggressive federal roll-backs of privacy legislation has a tendency to change the perceived topography and limits of where a company can go.

Nobody can claim with a straight face that allowing AT&T and Comcast to sell their users’ browser histories has any relationship to national security. It also creates a massive gap in consumer protection law as broadband and cable companies now have no discernible privacy requirements.

“Representative [Martha] McSally just voted to allow internet providers, like Comcast and Verizon, to sell your sensitive personal information to other companies – all without your consent”, a script of a robocall targeting Arizona Rep. Martha McSally, reads. “They voted to take away the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of Americans just so a few giant companies could pad their already considerable profits”. Google and Facebook have always been relentless collectors of user data.

“You may recall Verizon’s supercookie program where they were tracking quite a bit”, LeBlanc said. “You deserve to be able to insist that those intimate details be kept private and secure”.

The vote is part of an effort that Republicans have undertaken to void an array of regulations issued during the final months of Democratic President Barack Obama’s tenure.

“Whether or not IL is proposing privacy legislation because “[their legislative battles] can be easily won”, as Ben-Shahar suggested, other states are likely to follow suit.

Trump has not talked as president about net neutrality but in 2014 tweeted he opposed net neutrality.

The measure doesn’t give the government any more powers to gather information on people than it already had, although with ISPs getting into the data-mining business, LeBlanc said, that’s another place government officials could theoretically go to find information about people of interest. “Privacy will be a luxury, not a right – something that the well-to-do can afford, but which most have learnt to live without”.