Perhaps you’ve read that Congress voted to empower cable providers to collect your personal information and sell it, unraveling “landmark” privacy protections from the Federal Communications Commission. The partisans and reporters pumping this claim are—let’s be kind—uninformed, so allow us to add a few facts.
The FCC didn’t roll out these rules in response to gross privacy invasions. The agency lacked jurisdiction until 2015 when it snatched authority from the Federal Trade Commission by reclassifying the internet as a public utility. The FTC had punished bad actors in privacy and data security for years, with more than 150 enforcement actions.
The FCC ditched this approach and promulgated a rule that, curiously, did not apply to companies like Google or Amazon, whose business model includes monetizing massive data collection ...
clarionite wrote:I'm not understanding how a VPN would secure our privacy? I run a VPN tunnel to my office network now. You still need an ISP to reach out to the rest of the world, and that's the point that would be selling your activity. I'm not happy about this. I don't see it any differently than someone being able to buy my activity from the electric company. Imagine crooks being able to purchase your history of usage. Knowing when you're home and when you're not based on how much electricity you use, Then shopping at your house while you're gone.
The only activity your ISP would see is the connection to your VPN provider.
How do you figure that? A VPN (Virtual Private Network) does nothing other than link you into another network. There's still an ISP servicing the requests, and an ISP logging the activity that they can now sell.
Calrionite, the VPN creates an encrypted tunnel from your box (PC, Iphone, iPad, etc.) to the VPN provider. All Comcast, AT&T, etc., will see is that there is port 443 (or randomized port #) traffic between you and VPNUnlimited.com (for instance). The ISP can't see that you're surfing reddit.com or RachelMaddow.com, they only see that you are sending and receiving traffic from VPNUnlimited.
Even your DNS requests will be encrypted and filtered through a VPN providers network, which your ISP won't be able to see, if done properly. It's not hard to find a good one, people have been using VPNs to circumvent "anti fun" filters in the middle east, so they're reliable. Add incompetence and disinterest of authorities in general, and you're golden.
Apparently a lot of people on here don't care whether they are governed by nameless bureaucrats over whom they have no influence or by their elected representatives. This isn't about privacy; it is about the FCC illicitly grabbing power over the internet. Regardless of the value or lack thereof of these rules, you shouldn't want the FCC making the rules when it has no authority to do so.
The action by Congress is simply one to take back control from the FCC!
Your browsing history is already known and used by Google, or whichever search engine you use, any social media you use and Amazon and every other online retailer you use. This regulation did nothing to change that. So yours is really a red herring argument.
Moreover the regulation really would not have stopped the ISPs from getting and using your browsing history. It just would have made it a little more difficult. So all the privacy arguments about this are a tempest in teapot.
The real issue is do you really want unelected bureaucrats to govern you or would you like to stick to the Constitution and be governed by the Congressman and President elected by the majority.
The real issue is do you really want unelected bureaucrats to govern you or would you like to stick to the Constitution and be governed by the Congressman and President elected by the majority.
Sorry, but I don't buy that argument. One, they aren't governing me, they are governing the ISP's. Two, not all government is bad. Believe it or not, some regulation is acceptable in my opinion. Otherwise we wouldn't have these silly federal agencies like the FDA ensuring you don't risk death every time you buy packaged meat at the store. Unless you're against that too, in which case all the more power to you sir!
It sure makes sense to periodically review regulations to make adjustments or even cancel but to just arbitrally delete without comprehensive input and careful review is scary. Bannon's objective of "deconstruction of the administrative state" seems arbitrary and twisted.
