Republicans Vote To Roll Back Internet Privacy Protections

Telcos fiercely opposed the law, which the FCC passed in a 3-2 party-line vote with Democrats in the majority last October, claiming it skewed the market unfairly to companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook.

Rubio: “The FCC’s last-minute regulation was poorly conceived and held internet service providers to a different standard than other companies handling the same information, all while doing nothing to protect consumers’ privacy”. That would require further action by the FCC or Congress because ISPs and phone companies are common carriers that can not be regulated by the FTC.

“The American public wants us to strengthen privacy protections, not weaken them”.

The Republican-controlled House will now need to conduct its own vote on the rule before the existing rule banning the sale and sharing of such data is overturned. The regulations would have required Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to notify consumers when their personal information was accessible and notify them before accessing it.

“Senate Republicans just struck a massive blow against everyone who uses the internet, dismantling rules protecting people’s private information from unauthorized use and abuse by cable and phone companies”, said Gaurav Laoria, counsel at the nonprofit Free Press. The House could vote against canceling those rules and President Donald Trump could elect to veto any final decision killing the privacy rules. Having to get permission from customers to use their browsing and app histories would likely make it more hard to build stronger ad businesses, as telecomcompanies want to do.

But the rules were also essentially a recognition that broadband companies pose a particularly acute threat to consumer privacy. “When the FCC adopted unnecessary and discriminatory rules for ISPs it didn’t improve Americans online privacy, it harmed it by taking the FTC off the job”. Edward Markey (D) in a statement following the vote.

The US senate and its senators are coming under fierce criticism from privacy advocates after it voted to allow ISPs to share a citizen’s customer data without their permission. “The information ISPs have about their customers includes web browsing and video viewing habits, religious information, sexual preferences, health conditions, and location”, Center for Democracy & Technology policy analyst Natasha Duarte stated. It prevents the FCC from adopting “similar” rules, even far weaker ones, to protect internet users in the future. He also said, “American consumers should not have to be lawyers or engineers to figure out if their information is protected”, but that rings a little hollow when the case is now that consumers should just assume their information-potentially including health and financial information, information on children, browsing history, and social security numbers-isn’t protected.

But Jeff Flake (R-Arizona), who sponsored the legislation to roll back the FCC’s action, said that the rules had “the potential to limit customers’ choice, stifle innovation and jeopardize data security by destabilizing the internet ecosystem”. That’s because Congressional review resolutions do more than simply block new rules.