> Furthermore, this bill seems like a minor nuisance compared to the data collected by Facebook, Google, and the NSA.
This is the bullshit argument Republicans/ISPs are pushing that anyone technical should immediately realize as such. It's conflating two separate issues.
I can choose whether or not to use Google and Facebook, and indeed willingly "agree" to their TOS when I log on. But to even get to those providers, I need to go through an ISP. As someone in rural America, I don't have a choice in ISPs, and even in a lot of cities where you have "choice," they all share the same privacy-invading practices. That's the point of the rules passed by the FCC: protecting us, the consumers who are subject to the whims of anti-competitive corporations that have access to large swaths of our personal data.
Agree with you on Facebook and Google. There's a choice, and at least there is no law preventing competition/disruption. Not the case with the NSA, but that's a tangent.
The root issue is the national providers lobbying the state to prevent competition at the municipal level. Granting more power to the FCC does not solve that problem. Rather, it would only serve to lock in the existing monopolies and further centralize control with the state/corporate nexus.
The state preventing the market from functioning is not a valid reason to introduce more state intervention. In my view, competition will protect the consumer better than regulation in the long run.
Absolutely, competition will protect the consumer best. But we need that competition first :)
In the meantime, it seems logical to take some steps to limit the damage that our currently monopolistic telcos can do and give someone power to enforce a rule that: "(1) applies the customer privacy requirements of the Communications Act of 1934 to broadband Internet access service and other telecommunications services, (2) requires telecommunications carriers to inform customers about rights to opt in or opt out of the use or the sharing of their confidential information, (3) adopts data security and breach notification requirements, (4) prohibits broadband service offerings that are contingent on surrendering privacy rights, and (5) requires disclosures and affirmative consent when a broadband provider offers customers financial incentives in exchange for the provider's right to use a customer's confidential information." [0]
I mean seriously, considering the current landscape, does that seem like unreasonable overreach? Is anyone going to go out of business with rules like that?
The summary does sound reasonable on the surface. But read the whole whopping 73 pages. The regulations hurt small ISPs much more than national carriers.
For example, there's a Mom & Pop cellular-based ISP that serves my small mountain community. They could certainly be put out of business by this type of regulation after they pay for lawyers, IT services, training staff on new operations, etc. -- and heaven forbid they get audited by the FCC.
Maybe if the regulations only applied to national carriers, then you could argue this wouldn't hamper competition. That'd be something I could support.
The actual regulations are about 3 pages, 2 if you respect your customers' privacy. The previous 70 pages include historical context, rationale, explanation of related regulations, even an overview of the OSI model.
The FCC gave small providers a one-year extension and other concessions. And, as they pointed out, small providers generally collect less customer information and use it more narrowly.
This is the bullshit argument Republicans/ISPs are pushing that anyone technical should immediately realize as such. It's conflating two separate issues.
I can choose whether or not to use Google and Facebook, and indeed willingly "agree" to their TOS when I log on. But to even get to those providers, I need to go through an ISP. As someone in rural America, I don't have a choice in ISPs, and even in a lot of cities where you have "choice," they all share the same privacy-invading practices. That's the point of the rules passed by the FCC: protecting us, the consumers who are subject to the whims of anti-competitive corporations that have access to large swaths of our personal data.