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Disapproval of FCC regulations a significant blow against privacy protection

nytimes.com

21–30 of 242 posts

Re: Disapproval of FCC regulations a significant blow against privacy protection

#21
> In 2016, the F.C.C., which I led as chairman under President Barack Obama, extended those same protections to the internet.

Oh how nice of Tom Wheeler to play the good-guy now. It took a lot of public outcry for him to change his tune about Net Neutrality.

Re: Disapproval of FCC regulations a significant blow against privacy protection

#22
post #21

> In 2016, the F.C.C., which I led as chairman under President Barack Obama, extended those same protections to the internet. Oh how nice of Tom Wheeler to play the good-guy now. It took a lot of public outcry for him to change his tune about Net Neutrality.

He came around, and then was a reasonably good champion. Let's live in a world where people aren't permanently branded with temporary positions.

Re: Disapproval of FCC regulations a significant blow against privacy protection

#24
post #3

Is there anything the average user can do to protect their data/privacy from their ISP?

Yes VPN is a good answer here, but another idea to make the data they collect and sell less useful would be something like https://github.com/WhiteBeachStudios/cyberflare to hide your real usage habits among a bunch of artificially generated traffic.

Re: Disapproval of FCC regulations a significant blow against privacy protection

#25

The article's main argument is that the ISPs are selling something that doesn't belong to them, but to the consumer. I don't like the idea of my personal information being sold, but how could you state this as fact? Shouldn't it be up to the consumer to choose to do business with a company that sells your personal info vs a company that does not?

It's the same obvious policy applied to phone calls previously and mail previously previously.

Re: Disapproval of FCC regulations a significant blow against privacy protection

#26

The article's main argument is that the ISPs are selling something that doesn't belong to them, but to the consumer. I don't like the idea of my personal information being sold, but how could you state this as fact? Shouldn't it be up to the consumer to choose to do business with a company that sells your personal info vs a company that does not?

Don't downvote people who ask questions. Answer them if you disagree.

Re: Disapproval of FCC regulations a significant blow against privacy protection

#27
post #8

This is like FedEx or a privatized USPS being able to open your packages and read your mail without telling you. I pay you to carry my damn packets, keep your filthy hands off my data.

A better analogy would be FedEx selling your incoming and outgoing addresses and package weights to third parties, not necessarily the contents of your packages.

Re: Disapproval of FCC regulations a significant blow against privacy protection

#28

The article's main argument is that the ISPs are selling something that doesn't belong to them, but to the consumer. I don't like the idea of my personal information being sold, but how could you state this as fact? Shouldn't it be up to the consumer to choose to do business with a company that sells your personal info vs a company that does not?

Should a company you pay to make phone calls over sell the data of who you call?

Should a company you pay to mail packages/letters inspect your mail and sell the data of what mail and subscriptions you are getting?

Re: Disapproval of FCC regulations a significant blow against privacy protection

#30
post #11

At least consumers still have https going for them I suppose? Or maybe ISPs are now more motivated to man-in-the-middle those connections to get to the data, under the guise of security or something?

Yea that was my main question during this. What can we do. I thought https made this near impossible unless they MITM it, which would be difficult no? Or is it easy?

This is all the more reason we need to start encrypting all communication. All my hand built services (home bots, etc) need to start using tls for everything.

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