MESSAGE
| DATE | 2017-04-03 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout of NYLXS] Internet Privacy Furor Is a Preview of the
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Advocates are preparing for a new political battle on telecom regulation.
by Joshua Brustein
March 31, 2017, 3:35 PM EDT
The U.S. Congress’s decision to invalidate a set of internet privacy
rules from the Obama administration set off a firestorm this week. The
change, which will allow service providers like AT&T Inc. and Verizon
Communications Inc. to collect and sell customers’ information without
their permission, prompted ad campaigns from internet freedom groups
shaming lawmakers and a small wave of service journalism about VPNs and
other privacy tools.
Reactions in certain corners of the internet got hysterical pretty
quickly. The creator of Cards Against Humanity said he'd buy the
browsing histories of Republican lawmakers and post them publicly. In
reality, the change won’t immediately create a shadowy new market for
online voyeurism, but it does serve as a preview for a much bigger
policy fight likely to unfold over the next several months. Republicans
who want to roll back rules on net neutrality are expected to use this
week as a template for revisiting the most contentious issue on the menu
of internet policy topics.
Net neutrality has been the premier issue of internet policy wonks for
years. Broadly speaking, it refers to regulations keeping internet
providers from treating traffic differently based on its source. So with
net neutrality in place, Comcast Corp. couldn’t tell Netflix Inc. that
the streaming provider will have to pay to keep its videos from slowing
down. In 2015, Tom Wheeler, then chairman of the FCC under Barack Obama,
pushed through the most stringent net neutrality rules to date.
This week’s privacy rule and a potential reversal of net neutrality are
both consistent with President Donald Trump’s agenda to undo what he
sees as government overreach that holds back businesses. In the case of
Tuesday’s vote in the House, lifting the restriction on internet
providers from collecting and monetizing customer data could allow them
to compete more directly with Google and Facebook Inc., which have used
targeted advertising to create some of the most valuable businesses on
earth. Congress’s move means the telecoms can get started, especially
since it will legally preclude the Federal Communications Commission
from passing similar rules in the future.
Ajit Pai, who Trump designated as FCC chairman this year, said in a
statement that the privacy rules had been “designed to benefit one group
of favored companies over another group of disfavored companies.” On
Thursday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer echoed the remarks, in a way
that some interpreted as a commitment to undo the broader net neutrality
rules.
Gigi Sohn, who worked at Wheeler’s FCC as counselor to the chairman,
said she sees this week’s positioning on the privacy rules as a
precursor to Republicans arguing that the FCC shouldn’t regulate
internet service providers at all. “They haven’t done that yet, but
that’s what the net neutrality battle is going to be all about, and
that’s what Spicer was somewhat signaling,” she said.
Net neutrality protections aren't dead yet, but they're effectively
dormant. Pai’s FCC has made clear it won’t enforce them. Last month, the
regulator dropped investigations into whether internet providers
violated net neutrality rules through a practice known as zero-rating,
where certain services are exempt from data caps on their wireless
plans. Given his longstanding opposition to the rules, Pai is unlikely
to open any new net neutrality investigations. Sohn, who’s now a fellow
at the Open Society Foundations, expects to see the commission attempt
to unwind the rules in earnest over the next few months.
When this happens, the two sides of the debate will frame the issue
differently. Republicans will say they’re only looking to reverse a
bureaucratic power grab, as Pai argued after the privacy vote. “It’s
worth remembering that the FCC’s own overreach created the problem we
are facing today,” he said. He’d like the FCC to get out of the internet
regulation game, and let the Federal Trade Commission enforce privacy
complaints on a case-by-case basis. This also happens to be the
prevailing Republican view on net neutrality, which sees the 2015 rules
as unnecessary because the FTC had all the power it needed to deal with
abuse individually.
Supporters of net neutrality don’t think handing things back over to the
FTC would be enough to curb abuse. Sohn said the Obama administration
rules set explicit guardrails, while the FTC’s broader charge of
policing unfair and deceptive business practices will leave too much
wiggle room.
Exclusive insights on technology around the world.
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There’s little chance Obama-era neutrality will remain fully intact,
said Berin Szoka, president of TechFreedom, a think tank that opposed
the FCC's 2015 rules. Republicans could agree to leave some rules in
place through new legislation while simultaneously stripping the FCC of
the new authority it claimed. The rollback of the FCC's privacy rules
will serve as a catalyst for neutrality negotiations, said Szoka. “That
ought to have the effect of helping get Democrats to come to the table
on some kind of permanent deal,” he said.
Such a compromise would adopt the bloodless view that Pai and
Congressional Republicans bring to the issue. They see internet
regulation in terms of how it affects the balance of power between
corporate interests, arguing that there's little impact on the public's
well-being. Few people stay up at night worrying about turf wars between
federal agencies.
But the pro net neutrality crowd believe they have a good populist issue
to work with, as the fierce reaction to the privacy rules showed. When
Wheeler took office, few people expected him to push for strong net
neutrality rules. His commission initially floated a proposal that
neutrality advocates hated, leading to an unprecedented public outcry.
This was a primary reason the 2015 rules were passed. Neutrality
supporters are hoping to replicate that same outrage for the next fight.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive
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http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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