
Republicans hope to overturn internet privacy rules - coldcode
https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/15/republican-plan-to-overturn-isp-privacy-rules/
======
1024core
I'd love to hear from some Republican supporters who think this is a good
idea. More often than not, the party of "individual rights" is anything but.

I don't mean to start a flame war, but am genuinely curious.

~~~
onetimeusename
This isn't about opposing privacy. There is a reasonable expectation to
privacy people have but the privacy laws adapted by the FCC in the past have
only been applied to ISPs and not other edge providers, such as Google or
Skype. So in short, they are just bad laws.

The regulations placed on ISPs place an undue burden on them but not on other
Internet companies. Firstly, this means that users have to understand a lot
about the networks they use to understand how privacy laws affect them.
Second, it also means that edge providers(Yahoo, Skype, Google) have an unfair
advantage. The justification given for this is that ISPs see much more data
than edge providers. But this does not appear true and in fact a great deal of
personal information and network-usage data appears to be available to other
parties besides ISPs. You can search headlines to see that. So it doesn't make
sense to single out ISPs for privacy laws but not other Internet companies
that have access to user data. Also, it makes the law more complicated
regarding user data privacy.

I also want to point out that, in my personal opinion, there is a tendency to
view ISPs as malicious actors but not for other edge providers which biases
the debate on Internet privacy laws.

~~~
toddmorey
"..the privacy laws adapted by the FCC in the past have only been applied to
ISPs and not other edge providers... So in short, they are just bad laws."

I feel that builds the argument that they should be implemented more widely,
not abandoned. Also, ISPs are targeted specifically not because people believe
they are malicious actors, but because they are literally the gateway to
everything, impacting you just about any time you use the internet. Think how
much it would say about you as a person in detailed logs from your service
provider.

~~~
onetimeusename
Yes, the argument that they should be widely implemented is definitely implied
and valid.

Regarding your analogy, end to end encrypted content is not readable by the
ISP, they can see metadata for encrypted content, but not the content itself.
Whereas webmail providers can see the content[1]. Another example is Google
who run a public DNS server. Another example is Apple keeping all phone
numbers[2]. So the data that edge providers have access to(in theory) is
fairly significant. I think definitely to be consistent the law has to be an
all or nothing kind of thing.

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/04/yahoo-scans-email-for-
nsa/](https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/04/yahoo-scans-email-for-nsa/)

[2] [http://www.macworld.com/article/3125570/iphone-ipad/apple-
ke...](http://www.macworld.com/article/3125570/iphone-ipad/apple-keeps-track-
of-all-the-phone-numbers-you-contact-using-imessage.html)

~~~
pseudalopex
There's a competitive market in online services. FastMail scans only for spam,
and you can opt out.[1] Microsoft claims not to use email for ad targeting.[2]
Google DNS is a standalone service with a reasonable, detailed privacy
policy.[3] iMessage is optional even if you choose to use Apple platforms.

Meanwhile, most US households have only one option for 25+ Mbps Internet
service because the FCC dismantled competition among residential ISPs. If ISPs
don't want the responsibilities that come with monopoly power, they should
stop fighting to preserve it.

[1]
[https://www.fastmail.com/about/privacy.html](https://www.fastmail.com/about/privacy.html)

[2] [https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-US/](https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-
US/)

[3] [https://developers.google.com/speed/public-
dns/privacy](https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy)

------
coldcode
Why does anyone think allowing ISPs to collect and operate on customer
information with impunity is a good idea for the general public, who often
have no alternatives?

~~~
rayiner
It's a proxy war in a battle between industry sectors.

> Telecoms unsurprisingly object to the rules. They feel they're subject to
> more stringent regulation than many of the websites you visit, and believe
> that an opt-in requirement hurts their ability to target you with
> personalized ads.

Silicon Valley would similarly chafe at the idea of opt-in requirements before
being able to use customer data. You can raise the competition issue, and
that's fair to a degree. But I have more realistic choices for say my cell
phone plan than I do the search engine I use. And I have every little choice
in, e.g., whether or not I send emails to gmail/yahoo/etc. users.

As for why Republicans take up this particular mantle, there is a cynical take
and a charitable one. Telecom companies employ hundreds of thousands of
people, and are geographically dispersed. Silicon Valley is highly
concentrated and doesn't employ that many people. AT&T, for example, has
thousands of employees in Tennessee. Google has a few hundred. Does Facebook
have any?

IMHO, _everybody_ making Internet infrastructure should be required to get
opt-in consent before using private customer information.

~~~
wlesieutre
> But I have more realistic choices for say my cell phone plan than I do the
> search engine I use. And I have every little choice in, e.g., whether or not
> I send emails to gmail/yahoo/etc. users.

If I don't want to use Google because of their tracking, I can use DuckDuckGo.

If I don't want to use Comcast because of their tracking, my other options are
Comcast, Comcast, Comcast, and Comcast. I think you're being a bit
disingenuous by focusing on cellular carriers and not mentioning wired
broadband providers where we have no competition, no consumer choice, and no
market solution to abuses by the service provider.

Your criticism of email is somewhat more fair. While there are alternative
services available that you could use, the majority of your contacts are going
to choose to fork over all of your information to Google. But if you're
_really_ concerned about that, you can find other channels to contact them.
That's still a better situation than the ISP market that most Americans are
stuck with.

~~~
rayiner
Trotting out DDG and Yahoo is kinda like saying satellite and fixed 4G are
competition in almost every market. In practice, nobody sees them as real
competition. In practice, the markets look quite similar:

Google, [small cliff] Bing, [huge cliff] :: Cable, [small cliff] DSL, [huge
cliff].

Also, I am skeptical of this focus on wireline. There are 3x as many wireless
broadband subscriptions in the U.S. (more than there are people!) than wired
broadband. Wired broadband penetration has actually plateaued and is now
shrinking.

~~~
guimarin
I don't know about your comparison. Scientifically speaking Google search
results and Bing's are nearly identical. And this is born out in the fact that
Google's cost of acquiring traffic is going up while their ad CPMs on search
are going down. They've been disguising it by increasing ad units on the
search pages, oftentimes breaking their own ad placement guidelines. That
Google's search is commoditized is the entire reason why Google became
Alphabet and has been cleaning house on all their frivolous products. To be
clear, Bing doesn't have the brand Google has, but in terms of the actual
technical result of the product, it is virtually identical. The other issue
with your comparison as approached above, is that comcast and the other ISPs
have gov't granted monopolies, and end users cannot move to another carrier.
They were granted these in exchange for building out massive cable/broadband
networks with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. What happened is that
the regulators fell asleep at the wheel or turned a blind eye and almost none
of that money was actually spent upgrading the network.

------
jhack
"Small government"

~~~
strictnein
Well, yes, the government would be ever so slightly smaller with this change.

------
michaelbuddy
Sadly engadget is not a reliable source, so there's really nothing to take
specifically from this article at face value (not that it said much other than
FUD anyway). Lately they've been caught making or repeating way too much fake
news related to politics and even entertainment topics.

------
shatteredvisage
What can we do to stop this?

~~~
jandrese
Elect Bernie Sanders.

Other than that, write to your representatives and tell them in no unambiguous
language that they are sacrificing liberty for a feeling of security. Remind
them that their own internet use could be monitored by their political
opponents because once the framework is in place it is far too easy to abuse
it.

~~~
joelrunyon
I know you're being facetious, but did Bernie really have a stance on internet
privacy? It was pretty clear the main platform he had fleshed out was just
economic policy.

~~~
jandrese
[http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-privacy-and-
digital...](http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-privacy-and-digital-
rights/)

------
astrodust
You literally have no idea what you're talking about.

~~~
dang
Comments like this aren't allowed on HN regardless of how ignorant someone
else is, so please don't post them. When someone is mistaken, show them how
(and more importantly, the rest of us) by adding information. If you don't
want to do that or don't have time, posting nothing is a fine option too.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13661688](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13661688)
and marked it off-topic.

------
grondilu
Why do people seem so obsessed with privacy on the net?

I mean, I get that privacy is important. I would not like the walls of my
house to be transparent, for instance. But that's the thing : they're not, and
this law would not change that.

What I mean is that I, for better or worse, make a clear distinction between
privacy in the physical word and privacy online. I basically don't consider
anything I do online "really" private. The only reason I assume nobody knows
what I do there is that I presume nobody cares. And if I really wanted to hide
what I'm doing I'd use TOR, GnuPG or something like that.

~~~
draw_down
Why do republicans seem so obsessed with making everything shittier instead of
making an earnest attempt to fix some of our country's problems?

~~~
mindslight
If you actually want to know, each party markets to the grassroots concerns of
the people in their audience. After they get in power, what they actually
implement is the agenda of their corporate sponsors.

If you want to understand the situation:

1\. Try suppressing your immediate visceral reaction to issues that grassroots
Republicans care about. Open your mind, tune into some decent red media, and
ask yourself "what if there is some truth in this?"

2\. Avoid being drawn into the groupthink that condones the actions of your
own team as altruistic. Open your mind and ask yourself "what if there is some
oppressive agenda behind this?"

Unfortunately, you will have to find media from back when Democrats had power.
Now that the other team is the aggressor and your team is the opposition, it
will be impossible to perceive (your team is now only "fighting the good
fight", as they lack power to implement their sponsors' policies). But my
message goes equally for the red team as well, reversing the parties.

