News about the internet and the role and rights of users and providers are getting new regulations. On the one hand, innovation is encouraged, and that is good for consumers.
First, the good news.
"Bright Line Rules:
No Blocking: broadband providers may not block access to legal content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.
No Throttling: broadband providers may not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic by content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices.
No Paid Prioritization: broadband providers may not favor some lawful Internet traffic over other lawful traffic in exchange for consideration of any kind—in other words, no "fast lanes." This rule also bans ISPs from prioritizing content and services of their affiliates.
To ensure an open Internet now and in the future, the Open Internet rules also establish a legal standard for other broadband provider practices to ensure that they do not unreasonably interfere with or disadvantage consumers' access to the Internet. The rules build upon existing, strong transparency requirements. They ensure that broadband providers maintain the ability to manage the technical and engineering aspects of their networks."
https://www.fcc.gov/general/open-internet
Free expression is assured. However, internet service providers own your profile and can sell it at will. That is the breach of your personal privacy.
The truly bad news
"Broadband Internet providers like Comcast and Verizon will be able to sell customers’ sensitive private information — including browsing histories — under a House resolution passed Tuesday evening.
In a 215-205 vote, Congress effectively nullified a December 2016 Federal Communications Communication rule that required broadband internet service providers to get permission from customers before selling their personal information to third parties.
The measure passed the GOP-led Senate March 23, on a party-line vote of 50-48. The resolution now heads to President Trump, who’s expected to sign it.
According to the FCC, customers’ “sensitive private information” includes everything from app downloads, browsing histories, precise geo-locations and even financial and medical data.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) sponsored the resolution in the House and argued that the FCC rule usurped the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission.
“Having two privacy cops on the beat will create confusion within the internet ecosystem and will end up harming consumers,” Blackburn said Tuesday. “…These broadband privacy rules are unnecessary and just another example of big government overreach.”
Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T are among Blackburn’s top political donors, fundraising records from the Center for Responsive Politics show.
Democrats blasted Republicans for betraying the privacy rights of consumers.
“Keep your mitts off of my privacy — what I consider to be private,” Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) fumed on the House floor.
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“The consequences of passing this resolution are clear: Broadband providers like AT&T, Comcast and others will be able to sell your personal information to the highest bidder without your permission, and no one will be able to protect you, not even the Federal Trade Commission.”
http://nypost.com/2017/03/28/internet-providers-closer-to-selling-customers-private-info/
Image from the hackernews.com
As former four-star general and CIA director David Petraeus writes this week in The WorldPost, “Cyber capabilities are further blurring the boundaries between wartime and peacetime, and between civilian and military spaces.” In the military realm, he says, cyber has now become a borderless domain of warfare. Yet, as with nuclear weapons in the past, he concludes, “Security in the century ahead will depend more on our moral imagination — and with it, the ability to develop concepts of restraint — than it will on amazing technological breakthroughs.”
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