To me, it seemed as if yesterday was one of US administration’s darker days. Less than a week after the senate first proposed it, the house has passed the Senate Joint Resolution 34 (H. Res. 230). Congratulations, ISPs can now legally sell your browsing data to advertisers. And you can bet that they will.
The house took the Obama administration’s broadband privacy regulations under vote. The issue here was pretty simple. Last year, the FCC under president Obama, introduced a new bill that sought to restrain Internet Service Providers from how they could deploy user data. The Bill stipulated that ISP’s needed to first seek consent from users before it could have shared or sell their data to anyone. At today’s vote, the house chose to abolish this rule by 10 votes.
The vote was pretty close. While the republicans were voting against the rule, the democrats wanted to preserve it. However, 10 republicans realized the gravity of tearing away the fundamental right to privacy of the individual, and decided to vote in favor of the bill alongside the democrats. With all that said and done, the vote was still lost by 10 votes and the republicans managed to pass a bill repealing the previous administration’s decision. Now, all that is needed is a signature from president Trump that will clinch it into a law.
California Representative Anna Eshoo summarized what many of us were feeling when she said:
They can use your information and sell it to the highest bidder. I think it’s a sad day if the bill passes.
To be fair, I have no idea how the house can pass a bill that violates the privacy of the cast majority of user simply for the financial benefit of a few ISPs. With all that data on their hands, you can bet that they are going to sell it in droves.
Here is what the privacy-breaching joint resolution looks like:
This joint resolution nullifies the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission entitled “Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services.” The rule published on December 2, 2016: (1) applies the customer privacy requirements of the Communications Act of 1934 to broadband Internet access service and other telecommunications services, (2) requires telecommunications carriers to inform customers about rights to opt in or opt out of the use or the sharing of their confidential information, (3) adopts data security and breach notification requirements, (4) prohibits broadband service offerings that are contingent on surrendering privacy rights, and (5) requires disclosures and affirmative consent when a broadband provider offers customers financial incentives in exchange for the provider’s right to use a customer’s confidential information.
Just read the above description of the law, which was brought into action in Obama’s US. It looks like something that should be, that absolutely must be passed — not scrapped. Meanwhile, ISPs can celebrate as they now have a brand new revenue stream to generate bucks from. Advertisers on the other hand, will soon have a whole lot of de-anonymized personal data they can use to target their ads better.
Incidentally, President Trump also pushed a new energy law that will ease restrictions over oil miners and coal diggers and will be an effective step back from the US’s signing of the Paris accords and its pro-environment policies that were also introduced last year.
