The Internet Privacy Rules "Repeal" Is A Nothingburger. Here's Why.

Much outrage has been had in the past few days over Republicans in Congress and Title II internet privacy (net neutrality) rules being stripped. It has been framed as Republicans giving the green-light to ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to sell their customer’s internet data to the highest bidder. That is simply and categorically false. First of all, ISPs are bound by privacy agreements which are administered both in-house and by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). The FTC has the primary function of protecting consumer privacy. Second of all, the internet privacy rules in question were not on the books as of yet. All that happened was that the status quo was maintained, rather than enacting a new regulation from the government. Third, the regulation would not have affected the behemoth companies like Facebook that sell user data every day as a part of their business model.

This regulation would have transferred control of internet privacy from the FTC to the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) which handles regulations of physical hardware rather than the minutia of consumer privacy.

At the core of this issue is Net Neutrality and very large companies on the internet like Facebook and Netflix which are trying to get lower costs on their internet usage and also less competition in the area of being able to profit off of data collection and selling. The narrative behind “data-selling” is also misleading because it’s really about being able to sell ads based upon your browsing history. Facebook as a prime example will have trackers on it’s website that communicate with trackers on other websites like eBay. If you were looking at a pair of shoes on eBay then return to Facebook, there may be an ad waiting for you in the main news feed or sidebar showing the exact pair of shoes you were looking at and/or an assortment of shoes that look similar. Some have even speculated that Facebook listens to you talk through your microphone to serve you ads that way.

Your internet service provider does not have the infrastructure to collect and sell your data as efficiently as the big behemoth companies that use ISPs. Nor do they have the legal right to, as they are regulated already by the FTC while large internet companies are generally unregulated. Long and short of it is that lobbyists for large internet-based companies tried to get government regulations placed on internet service providers so their companies can become more profitable at the expense of both the ISP and the consumer. Lobbyists attempted to frame it as being in the best interest of the consumer for privacy but that is simply not reality.

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No, Republicans didn’t just strip away your Internet privacy rights - Washington Post (FCC Chair Ajit Pai)

RIP Internet privacy rules. Is net neutrality next? - Apr. 4, 2017

Tom Wheeler says being a lobbyist was easy—being FCC chairman was hard | Ars Technica

Department of the Internet- Helpline on Vimeo

Congress was right to save consumers from privacy rules imposed under net neutrality

Netflix Bandwidth Usage Climbs to Nearly 37% of Internet Traffic at Peak Hours

Buy Congress' Internet Data by Misha Collins - GoFundMe