House
passes bill undoing Obama internet privacy rule
* All Data exposed
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The House on Tuesday
voted in favor of blocking internet privacy rules passed by the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) last year, sending the bill to President Trump,
who is expected to sign it into law.
The bill passed 215 to
205, with 15 Republicans joining 190 Democrats voting against it.
The FCC rules would
have given consumers greater control over what their internet service provider
can do with their data by requiring those companies to get permission from
customers before using their information to create targeted advertisements.
The rules had not yet
gone into effect.
The bill, which passed
the Senate last week in a party-line vote, invokes a law called the
Congressional Review Act (CRA) that allows Congress to undo recently passed
regulations. A CRA bill also prohibits agencies from passing similar
regulations in the future.
The White House has said that it supports the
bill.
The opposition to the
regulations was led by Republicans and the telecom industry, who argue that
they are too costly and confusing. They say the rules would have subjected
internet service providers to restrictions that do not apply to websites like Facebook and Google, which also
collect consumer information for data-driven ads.
“The FCC didn’t
embrace a technology-neutral framework for privacy,” Jon Leibowitz, co-chair of
the industry group 21st Century Privacy Coalition, said in a call with
reporters Tuesday.
“It instead set out an
overbroad definition of sensitive data that doesn’t apply to non-ISP’s
collecting as much or more personal data online. And as we all know, privacy
shouldn’t be about who collects information, it should be about what
information is collected and how it is used.”
But Democrats and
privacy advocates say that the rules would have been a step toward protecting
consumer privacy, and that service providers should not have free reign to sell
data to advertisers.
“Your broadband provider knows deeply personal
information about you and your family – where you are, what you want to know,
every site you visit, and more,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
said in a statement before the vote Tuesday.
“They can even track you when you’re surfing in a private
browsing mode. You deserve to be able to insist that those intimate details be
kept private and secure.”
After the vote, Sen. Ed
Markey (D-Mass.) announced
that he intends to introduce a bill instructing the FCC to reinstate privacy
rules.
The privacy rules were
passed under the authority that the FCC gained from its landmark 2015 net
neutrality rules. Those rules prohibited internet service providers from
blocking or slowing traffic to certain websites.
The net neutrality rules
also reclassified service providers as common carriers, which means they were
subject to tougher regulations from the FCC — like the privacy rules.
The vote was
immediately condemned by activists and applauded by industry groups.
“It is extremely
disappointing that Congress is sacrificing the privacy rights of Americans in
the interest of protecting the profits of major internet companies including
Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon. President Trump now has the opportunity to veto
this resolution and show he is not just a president for CEOs but for all
Americans," ACLU legislative counsel Neema Singh Giuliani said in a
statement. "Trump should use his power to protect everyone’s right to
privacy.”
“Today’s action is
another step to remove unnecessary rules and regulations that handicap economic
growth and innovation, and moves the country one step closer to ensuring that
consumers’ private information is protected uniformly across the entire
internet ecosystem," countered Jonathan Spalter, CEO of USTelecom.
"Consumers can rest easy today knowing their privacy is protected under
existing FCC authority, which requires companies to keep consumers’ data
safe."
If the rules were to
go into effect, they would classify certain consumer data as “sensitive” — like
browsing history, app usage and financial and medical information — and require
service providers to ask permission before using it for advertising.
Customers would also
be able to opt out of letting those companies use and share “non-sensitive”
information.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai,
a Republican who opposed the rules as a minority commissioner in October,
applauded the vote in a statement, saying that he will work to impose a
technology-neutral privacy regime.
“Moving forward, I
want the American people to know that the FCC will work with the FTC to ensure
that consumers’ online privacy is protected though a consistent and
comprehensive framework," Pai said.
"In my view, the
best way to achieve that result would be to return jurisdiction over broadband
providers’ privacy practices to the FTC, with its decades of experience and
expertise in this area.”
Democrats and
activists waged a furious campaign against the bill, trying to peg Republicans
as anti-privacy.
An advocacy group
called Fight for the Future pledged to put up billboards in Washington and other areas calling out those who voted
to repeal the rules.
And Tuesday,
Pelosi called on the largest internet service providers to state whether
they are in favor of the CRA bill.
“Americans learned
last week that agents of Russian intelligence hacked into e-mail accounts to
obtain secrets on American companies, government officials and more,” Pelosi
wrote in letters to 11 companies.
“This resolution would not only end the
requirement you take reasonable measures to protect consumers’ sensitive
information, but prevents the FCC from enacting a similar requirement and
leaves no other agency capable of protecting consumers.”
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