If you haven’t figured this out yet, the orange-tinted Congress of the United States doesn’t have the needs of common citizens in mind. The most obvious of this is the current efforts to strip the FCC requirements for the safeguarding of customer browsing data. Congress is currently working to strip these requirements so that corporations can make more money off on selling your data, all offering you nothing in return. Not even the option to opt out of this.
Let’s look at this closely and figure out what you can do to protect yourself. The pumpkin-inspired Congress does not have your best interest at heart. You’re going to have to learn how to take care of yourself online.
Congress to strip the SEC regulations protecting you online
What exactly is going on?
A resolution was passed in Congress that is looking to roll back privacy laws enacted by former President Barack Obama. This was put forward by Sen. Jeff Flake and Rep. Marsha Blackburn. They are looking to eliminate requirements introduced during the Obama administration which required ISPs to get customer permission before selling off their user data.
Sen. Jeff Flake introduces bill to kill Obama-era FCC Internet privacy rules https://t.co/Pn65D8sM6T
— U.S. Senate News (@SenateNews) March 8, 2017
Sen. Flake thought he was cute when he said of his bill:
“It empowers consumers to make informed choices on if and how their data can be shared.”
This is classic doublespeak as it does not actually give people the choice; it forces a choice on them. It will make things like that so that your ISP never has to ask you a single question about whether or not you’re information is collected and sold off to whoever has the money to purchase it.
What was President Obama trying to protect?
The FCC rules that President Obama had passed were looking to protect these seven parts of your online browsing habits:
- Financial and health data
- Geo-location data
- Information about your children
- Social security numbers
- App use
- Communications
- Web browsing history
The requirement that your ISP should obtain specific approval from you before sharing any of these details was included. How much of these details do you want to be shared with anyone who feels like paying for them? How much of these details do you want to be taken by anyone who feels like stealing them from those who paid for them? Somewhere in these seven points is the information that you want to be private. This is a nonpartisan issue; protecting this information is important.
How can you protect this information from your ISP?
Your ISP gains this information when it spies on your connection through its servers. It can access any of the information from the seven points above and record it, and then sell it on two data miners and companies that are looking to market to you more effectively. It all comes down to money changing hands; it doesn’t do anything for you.
There’s only one way that you can protect yourself. You need to choose a
These three