Senate votes to kill privacy rules guarding your online info

Ohio senators weigh in
Posted at 11:19 AM, Mar 24, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-24 19:38:20-04


Those rules, not yet in effect, would have required internet providers to ask your permission before sharing your personal information. That's a much stronger privacy-protection weapon than letting them use your data until you tell them to stop. As anyone who has ever tried to stop getting targeted ads on the internet knows, opting out is hard.

Without those protections, consumer advocates fear that broadband providers will be able to do what they like with people's data.

"Advertisers and marketers are lining up to get access to all the information that's now available about us," said Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, which advocates for tougher internet privacy measures.

Ohio's senators weigh in

Senator Rob Portman (R) voted in favor of the resolution to kill the regulations. 

"These draft Federal Communications Commission regulations, which had not yet gone into effect, would have caused confusion for consumers and businesses and would have been counterproductive at protecting online privacy," Portman said in a prepared statement. "For years, the Federal Trade Commission has been charged with protecting consumer privacy, and this vote helps restore their role. It’s my hope the FTC and FCC use this opportunity to collaborate to develop new, less burdensome, and more uniform privacy protections for all actors in the Internet."

Senator Sherrod Brown (D) voted against the resolution.

"These rules were meant to protect consumers from having their personal data shared without their permission," Brown said in a prepared statement. "It’s just wrong to allow corporations to make money tracking and selling sensitive information about Ohioans."

Online privacy? What online privacy?

Of course, Google and Facebook already track you. But proponents of the privacy measure argued that the company that sells you your internet connection can see even more about you: every website you visit, every app you use, everyone you message. Telecom companies argue that companies like Google know far more about users than they do.

Undoing the Federal Communications Commission's regulation leaves people's online information in a murky area. Today, you can tell a broadband provider not to use your data. Experts say federal law still requires broadband providers to protect customer information — but it doesn't spell out how or what companies must do.

That's what the now endangered rules from the Federal Communications Commission aimed to do. "There's kind of a void," said Perkins Coie telecom attorney Marc Martin.

Building digital-ad businesses 


Internet companies like Google operate under laxer requirements and don't have to ask users' permission before tracking what sites they visit. Republicans and industry groups have blasted that discrepancy, saying it was unfair and confusing for consumers.

Regulatory tussle



He and other Republicans want a different federal agency, the Federal Trade Commission, to police privacy for both broadband companies like AT&T and internet companies like Google. But broadband providers don't currently fall under FTC jurisdiction, and advocates say the FTC has historically been a weaker agency than the FCC.

"At the FCC, consumers are much more protected with strong privacy rules that give (internet service providers) clear rules as to what's fair and what's foul," Dallas Harris, a policy fellow with consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, said last month. "The FCC is a stronger entity with a bit more teeth to hold ISPs' feet to the fire."