So...Net Neutrality

[LaCroix]

if people can't get 15mbps right now, they have more problems than net neutrality. so the argument doesn't make sense

[Syt]

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/it-begins-trumps-fcc-launches-attack-on-net-neutrality-transparency-rules

It Begins: Trump's FCC Launches Attack on Net Neutrality Transparency Rules

Net neutrality, the internet's open access principle, is under assault by the Trump administration.

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted to eliminate open internet transparency protections for millions of consumers, in the Trump administration's most overt salvo yet in its nascent campaign to dismantle net neutrality protections.

As a result of Thursday's action, "thousands" of small and medium-sized internet service providers (ISPs) around the country are no longer required to give their customers detailed information about broadband prices, speeds and fees, according to the FCC.

The newly-rolled-back disclosure requirements, which were designed to help consumers make informed decisions when selecting an ISP, were a key part of the FCC's 2015 policy safeguarding net neutrality, the principle that all internet content should be equally accessible.

Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer who was installed by the Trump administration to lead the agency last month, framed Thursday's action as a move to "relieve thousands of smaller broadband providers from onerous reporting obligations."

Pai, who has claimed to be a champion of "transparency," asserted that removing the disclosure requirements would allow ISPs to save money that can then be used for broadband deployment.

But consumer advocates blasted the move as a brazen attempt to undermine net neutrality protections that open internet advocates say are essential for economic growth, civic empowerment, and free speech.

"This represents yet another in a series of steps being taken to jettison pro-consumer initiatives, and we should not stand silent as consumer protections 'go gentle into that good night,'" Democratic FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a longtime open internet advocate who voted against the move, said at the agency's monthly meeting on Thursday.

"Consumers deserve truth in pricing information," Sen. Edward J. Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement. "Instead of allowing ISPs to hide pricing information, the FCC should promote transparency so subscribers have all the background they need to make educated decisions about their broadband service."

FCC Chairman Pai has made no secret of his distaste for the FCC's net neutrality policy, which prohibits ISPs from favoring their own services or discriminating against rivals. Earlier this month, Pai halted the agency's inquiry into zero-rating, a controversial practice in which ISPs exempt certain services from data caps, effectively favoring those offerings at the expense of rivals.

Open internet advocates say such zero-rating practices violate open internet principles by creating the kind of discriminatory online environment that the FCC's net neutrality policy was designed to prevent.

Thursday's FCC action is the clearest signal yet that Pai and his Republican allies in Congress are determined to undermine net neutrality protections, an outcome that would hand a major victory to the nation's largest cable and phone companies, including Comcast, AT&T and Verizon.

"Here's how cost-benefit analysis works in the Trump administration and at the Pai FCC: If any favored lobby like the cable industry claims that rules cost them money, the agency will zap those rules—without any regard for their benefits," said Matt Wood, policy director at DC-based public interest group Free Press.

Broadband providers with fewer than 100,000 subscribers were already exempt from the net neutrality transparency requirements. But Thursday's action boosts the exemption limit to companies with as many as 250,000 subscribers, a substantial increase that could affect as many as 9.7 million consumers, mostly in rural and underserved communities, according to Sen. Markey's office. 

By increasing the exemption limit, Pai has eliminated the transparency requirements for many firms that are actually local or regional subsidiaries of the nation's largest broadband companies, which remain subject to the disclosure rules, according to FCC Commissioner Clyburn.

"Many of the nation's largest broadband providers are actually holding companies, comprised of many smaller operating companies," said Clyburn. "So what today's Order does is exempt these companies' affiliates that have under 250,000 connections by declining to aggregate the connection count at the holding company level."

In other words, although Thursday's action does not overtly affect the nation's largest broadband companies, it could have the effect of covertly eliminating disclosure rules for smaller companies in which the broadband giants have a financial stake.

Not surprisingly, the American Cable Association, an industry trade group that represents hundreds of smaller and medium-sized ISPs around the country, praised the elimination of the transparency rules, which the group had long been lobbying against. "ACA thanks Chairman Pai and Commissioner O'Rielly for acting so swiftly to remove the uncertainty small ISPs have lived under for the past two months," ACA CEO Matthew M. Polka said in a statement.

Thursday's FCC action represents just the beginning of the Trump FCC's assault on net neutrality, according to tech policy experts. Public interest groups and open internet advocates are bracing for what could be an epic political battle over the issue, with some activists pledging direct action in the streets to protect the principle.

[viper37]

Privacy rules are also abolished.  American ISPs no longer require explicit consent by consumers to share their private data.  They're free to sell your name, adress, phone number and e-mail to anyone willing to pay.

Freedom is great!

[Syt]

... says PC Gamer.

http://www.pcgamer.com/goodbye-internet-privacy-us-house-of-representatives-just-killed-fcc-privacy-rules/

Goodbye internet privacy: U.S. House of Representatives just killed FCC privacy rules

Your ISP is free and clear to do whatever it wants with your browsing history.

No surprises here. Last week, the U.S. Senate voted along party lines to stamp out strong FCC privacy regulations introduced in 2016. And today, the House of Representatives confirmed that those rules are dead, voting 215-205 (with 15 Republicans joining the Democrats to vote against the repeal) to allow ISPs and other telecommunications companies to do whatever they want with your personal data.

As we explained last week, the FCC's protections would have required ISPs to ask opt-in or opt-out permission for what they did with your personal data, like your browsing history. As the FCC's proposed rules summarized, this is what could have been regulatory policy before today's vote:

"In adopting these rules the Commission implements the statutory requirement that telecommunications carriers protect the confidentiality of customer proprietary information. The privacy framework in these rules focuses on transparency, choice, and data security, and provides heightened protection for sensitive customer information, consistent with customer expectations. The rules require carriers to provide privacy notices that clearly and accurately inform customers; obtain opt-in or opt-out customer approval to use and share sensitive or non-sensitive customer proprietary information, respectively; take reasonable measures to secure customer proprietary information; provide notification to customers, the Commission, and law enforcement in the event of data breaches that could result in harm; not condition provision of service on the surrender of privacy rights; and provide heightened notice and obtain affirmative consent when offering financial incentives in exchange for the right to use a customer's confidential information. The Commission also revises its current telecommunications privacy rules to harmonize today's privacy rules for all telecommunications carriers, and provides a tailored exemption from these rules for enterprise customers of telecommunications services other than [broadband internet]."

The resolution now heads to the White House, where President Trump will presumably sign it. The White House put out a news release this morning to that effect, claiming that the opt-in and opt-out rules for ISPs "depart from the technology-neutral framework for online privacy administered by the Federal Trade Commission. This results in rules that apply very different regulatory regimes based on the identity of the online actor."

Similarly, Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn, chair of the House subcommittee that oversees the FCC, said "[Consumer privacy] will be enhanced by removing the uncertainty and confusion these rules will create," according to The Washington Post. Blackburn is also not a fan of net neutrality.

With no FCC rules on the horizon to shape how ISPs handle privacy, it will be up to the industry to decide for itself how best to tell you what it's doing with your data. Good luck with that, friends!

If you're concerned about what to do to protect your online privacy, the EFF recommends these tools.

[Solmyr]

Well, at least all the gay porn makers will now be able to properly target Republican politicians with their ads.

[Syt]

https://www.gofundme.com/buycongressdata

Congress recently voted to strip Americans of their privacy rights by voting for SJR34, a resolution that allows Internet Service Providers to collect, and sell your sensitive data without your consent or knowledge.
Since Congress has made our privacy a commodity, let's band together to buy THEIR privacy.

This GoFundMe will pay to purchase the data of every Congressperson who voted for SJR34 and to make it publicly available.

PS: No, we won't "doxx" people. We will not share information that will impact the safety & security of their families (such as personal addresses). However, all other details are fair game. It says so right in the resolution that they voted to approve.

Game on, Congress.

PS: In the event that we don't raise enough money to buy the data, all proceeds will go to the ACLU to help fight to protect all Americans' rights. Thanks.

[Syt]

And from the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/five-creepy-things-your-isp-could-do-if-congress-repeals-fccs-privacy-protections

Five Creepy Things Your ISP Could Do if Congress Repeals the FCC's Privacy Protections

Why are we so worried about Congress repealing the FCC's privacy rules for ISPs? Because we've seen ISPs do some disturbing things in the past to invade their users' privacy. Here are five examples of creepy practices that could make a resurgence if we don't stop Congress now.

5. Selling your data to marketers

Which ISPs did it before? We don't know—but they're doing it as you read this!

It's no secret that many ISPs think they're sitting on a gold mine of user data that they want to sell to marketers. What some people don't realize is that some are already doing it. (Unfortunately they're getting away with this for now because the FCC's rules haven't gone into effect yet.)

According to Ad Age, SAP sells a service called Consumer Insights 365, which "ingests regularly updated data representing as many as 300 cellphone events per day for each of the 20 million to 25 million mobile subscribers." What type of data does Consumer Insights 365 "ingest?" Again, according to Ad Age, "The service also combines data from telcos with other information, telling businesses whether shoppers are checking out competitor prices... It can tell them the age ranges and genders of people who visited a store location between 10 a.m. and noon, and link location and demographic data with shoppers' web browsing history." And who is selling SAP their customers' data? Ad Age says "SAP won't disclose the carriers providing this data."

In other words, mobile broadband providers are too afraid to tell you, their customers, that they're selling data about your location, demographics, and browsing history. Maybe that's because it's an incredibly creepy thing to do, and these ISPs don't want to get caught red-handed.

And speaking of getting caught red-handed, that brings us to...

4. Hijacking your searches

Which ISPs did it before? Charter, Cogent, DirecPC, Frontier, Wide Open West (to name a few)

Back in 2011, several ISPs were caught red-handed working with a company called Paxfire to hijack  their customers' search queries to Bing, Yahoo!, and Google. Here's how it worked.

When you entered a search term in your browser's search box or URL bar, your ISP directed that query to Paxfire instead of to an actual search engine. Paxfire then checked what you were searching for to see if it matched a list of companies that had paid them for more traffic. If your query matched one of these brands (e.g. you had typed in "apple", "dell", or "wsj", to name a few) then Paxfire would send you directly to that company's website instead of sending you to a search engine and showing you all the search results (which is what you'd normally expect). The company would then presumably give Paxfire some money, and Paxfire would presumably give your ISP some money.

In other words, ISPs were hijacking their customers' search queries and redirecting them to a place customers hadn't asked for, all while pocketing a little cash on the side. Oh, and the ISPs in question hadn't bothered to tell their customers they'd be sending their search traffic to a third party that might record some of it.

It's hard to believe we're still on the subtle end of the creepy spectrum. But things are about to get a whole lot more in-your-face creepy, with...

3. Snooping through your traffic and inserting ads

Which ISPs did it before? AT&T, Charter, CMA

This is the biggest one people are worried about, and with good reason—ISPs have every incentive to snoop through your traffic, record what you're browsing, and then inject ads into your traffic based on your browsing history.

Plenty of ISPs have done it before—AT&T did it on some of their paid wifi hotspots; Charter did it with its broadband customers; and a smaller ISP called CMA did the same.

We don't think this one requires much explaining for folks to understand just how privacy invasive this is. But if you need a reminder, we're talking about the company that carries all your Internet traffic examining each packet in detail1 to build up a profile on you, which they can then use to inject even more ads into your browsing experience. (Or, even worse—they could hire a third-party company like NebuAd or Phorm to do all this for them.) That's your ISP straight up spying on you to sell ads—and turning the creepiness factor up to eleven.2 And speaking of spying, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention...

2. Pre-installing software on your phone and recording every URL you visit

Which ISPs did it before? AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile

When you buy a new Android phone, you probably expect it to come with some bloatware—apps installed by the manufacturer or carrier that you're never going to use. You don't expect it to come preinstalled with software that logs which apps you use and what websites you visit and sends data back to your ISP. But that's exactly what was uncovered when security researcher and EFF client Trevor Eckhart did some digging into Carrier IQ, an application that came preinstalled on phones sold by AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile.

This is even creepier than number three on our list (watching your traffic and injecting ads), because at least with number three, your ISP can only see your unencrypted traffic. With Carrier IQ, your ISP could also see what encrypted (HTTPS) URLs you visit and record what apps you use.

Simply put, preinstalled software like Carrier IQ gives your ISP a window into everything you do on your phone. While mobile ISPs may have backed down on using Carrier IQ in the past (and the situation led to a class action lawsuit), you can bet that if the FCC's privacy rules are rolled back there'll be ISPs be eager to start something similar.

But none of these creepy practices holds a candle to the ultimate, creepiest thing ISPs want to do with your traffic, which is...

1. Injecting undetectable, undeletable tracking cookies in all of your HTTP traffic

Which ISPs did it before? AT&T, Verizon

The number one creepiest thing on our list of privacy-invasive practices comes courtesy of Verizon (and AT&T, which quickly killed a similar program after Verizon started getting blowback).

Back in 2014 Verizon Wireless decided that it was a good idea to insert supercookies into all of its mobile customers' traffic. Yes, you read that right—it's as if some Verizon exec thought "inserting tracking headers into all our customers' traffic can't have a down side, can it?" Oh, and, for far too long, they didn't bother to explicitly tell their customers ahead of time.

But it gets worse. Initially, there was no way for customers to turn this "feature" off. It didn't matter if you were browsing in Incognito or Private Browsing mode, using a tracker-blocker, or had enabled Do-Not-Track: Verizon ignored all this and inserted a unique identifier into all your unencrypted outbound traffic anyway. According to the FCC, it wasn't until "two years after Verizon Wireless first began inserting UIDH, that the company updated its privacy policy to disclose its use of UIDH and began to offer consumers the opportunity to opt-out of the insertion of unique identifier headers into their Internet traffic."

As a result, anyone—not just advertisers—could track you as you browsed the web. Even if you cleared your cookies, advertisers could use Verizon's tracking header to resurrect them, which led to something called "zombie cookies." If that doesn't sound creepy, we don't know what does.

As you can see, there's a lot at stake in this fight. The FCC privacy rules congress is trying to kill would limit all of these creepy practices (and even ban some of them outright). So don't forget to call your senators and representative right now—because if we don't stop Congress from killing the FCC's ISP privacy rules now, we may end up with a lot more than five creepy ISP practices in the future.

[CountDeMoney]

Existential question:  if ISPs selling your porn browsing history for profit makes Yi cum like a volcano, does that make it internet porn about internet porn?

[DontSayBanana]

Comcast already seems to be injecting ads.  Ublock Origin has had a hard time keeping up this morning.

[FunkMonk]

VPNs ftw

[Valmy]

Wait there were privacy laws? Huh.

[Duque de Bragança]

Intellectual masturbation:  if ISPs selling your porn browsing history for profit makes Yi cum like a volcano, does that make it internet porn about internet porn?

Fixed!

[viper37]

Wait there were privacy laws? Huh.

There were, but they weren't implemented yet, and the new FCC chairman already killed them when he came into office (he actually said he would not enforce them, Congress just makes it legit).

[CountDeMoney]

Great clip from the floor of the House yesterday of Michael Capuano (D-Mass) losing his shit in "...And Justice For All" fashion.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4663947/rep-michael-capuano-repealing-fcc-internet-privacy-rule

[HVC]

I like how he starts out all clam before breaking into his spiel.