A sad, sad day for the Internet and our freedoms

[kandrathe]

For the rest of us, we’re at the mercy of a group of rich suits, a group we’re now trusting to ethically handle data containing our most sensitive information.

What could go wrong?

This was a new FCC rule made last October, to be implemented within 6 months (or, about now).

https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attach...-148A1.pdf

So, the congress said NO to a change that has not been implemented. Now, don't get me wrong, the FCC changes would be a boon for consumers. But, the carriers have costs in following all the FCC requirements as well. So, rather than " opening the flood gates", what happened was the failure to put and end to the wild, wild, west of internet consumer (as the product) exploitation.

This is why all the ads on my various devices show me local gyms I should join, as I did do some google searches for health clubs near my home, and work. Spooky, but that's the world we live in. I hope Target doesn't think I'm pregnant.

How will the .net change from yesterday? Zero. What we lost was a potential change. I also don't see this as affecting "Net Neutrality", or the premise that all data moves at the same speed (e.g. Netflix can't pay more to get exclusive priority speeds on COMCAST then up-charge it to their customers).

The costs would actually be minimal for what the FCC guildlines were to do, that being to simply have the customers of the ISPs opt in or opt out of having their privacy protected. In essence, the ISPs would have to create a new column in the customer database stating whether the customer gave permission to have their information shared or not. Creating a simple column in a database isn't going to take a lot of work from a DBA (probably 5 minutes at most). Since the ISP also likely provides emails to the customer, either through the ISP itself or a given email address the customer has provided, it simply sending an email message to the customer with a link to a website that will link the customer's wishes on opting in or out. The most expensive portion would be creating a webpage to takei in said information and linking it back to the database (maybe a week or so of creation and testing and looking for possible exploits in the coding of the page). So, no, this wasn't going to be something expensive to do, it was simply the Republicans being lobbied by the ISPs so they can make more money off their customers instead of the Republicans actually trying to protect the public's privacy (the Democrats voted for this FCC guildline to go into effect).

Costs are not always implementation costs. Also, lost opportunity costs and competitive favoritism....

"The argument from ISPs is that they are being put under a harsher regime, while the status of social media sites remains unchanged. Facebook and the like would have a clear advantage when it comes to digital advertising, while ISPs dispense the time and resources in compliance with new regulations."