But How Will My Life Be Better For It?
The US House of Representatives has repealed the law that allows us all a bit of internet privacy. Pres. Trump is expected to sign it into effect. Before you go ballistic, read the linked BBC article and then read it again. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39427026
“US internet service providers will soon no longer need consent from users to share browsing history with marketers and other third parties.” – from the article.
I don’t know exactly what kind of effect it will have on most of us, but I do get enough junk mail in my e-mail to choke a large dinosaur and I don’t think this will make it easier to deflect that crap. If anything, it bumped up a bit in October after the so-called ‘privacy law’ went into effect. I get e-mail offers from Swedish girls, which means the sender is confused about me. I’d rather have offers from Italian or French guys with names like Gianni or Jean-Pierre.
And no mustaches. They usually look like discouraged caterpillars and make me think of witless ‘n’ wandering. Eeeewww!.
Here’s a brief summary of what the October law contained.
“The law, passed last October just days before President Trump was elected, and due to take effect by the end of this year, would have forced ISPs to get clear permission from users to share personal data such as precise geo-location, financial information, health information, children’s information, social security numbers, web browsing history, app usage history and the content of communications.”
“Furthermore, ISPs would have been ordered to allow their customers the ability to opt out of the sharing of less sensitive information, like an email address.”
Like I said, that law was passed back in October and I didn’t see any slacking off of junk mail from AARP or junk e-mail from online hustlers. I did, in fact, see an increase of both.
I don’t know that repealing it will make much of a difference to any of us peonies out here in the hinterlands. If it did not exist until last Autumn, and now it’s been repealed, how is any of that going to change my life? If an online presence means that your Social Security number is up for grabs, what happens to your credit score if you haven’t frozen the credit reports with all three credit reporting agencies?
And let’s do remember that having a pristine, clean as a whistle, credit score does not mean you’re trustworthy at all, does it? I’m quite sure that Bradley Manning, Bowe Bergdahl, Eddie Snowden, and that malignant ground-dwelling scumbag Pressley, and all those other clean, wonderful people like Betrayus had perfect credit scores. Really trustworthy souls, aren’t they?
If you think this news of “passed and repealed” is confusing, join the club.
Category: Politics
So it didn’t take effect yet, was repealed and “will soon no longer need consent”?
I’m a bit confused here. News organizations just creating drama?
That’s probably as close to reality as any news organization can get.
The way the BBC article is written, it appears to be a tempest in a teapot. I don’t think most of us will notice anything.
You were getting spam because google or yahoo or whatever service (free service, for the vast majority of Americans) had you sign or digitally authorize them to use your data as they see fit. You have the option of not agreeing, and using a different service.
You don’t have that kind of option with your ISP. Your ISP has a monopoly in your locality, and if you want internet access, you don’t have any options. And now they don’t need your permission to sell your browsing history. Search for anything you wanted to keep private? Doesn’t matter if you used a fake gmail or yahoo or even a vpn. Verizon or Time Warner or whoever it is you use as an internet provider has that info and wants to sell it.
If you use a VPN, your ISP would only see connections to the VPN, no browsing history. Unless of course the VPN provider sells it. There’s also still the problem of some sites/services blocking VPNs, the extra cost to the consumer, the slowdown in speed, etc.
I have an @yahoo.com email address, which I have never used, and gets no spam. My most heavily spammed email addresses were created in 1999, and used for NNTP posting. Use an NNTP client to pull in NNTP headers; you will get a treasure trove of email addresses.
Filled in a mall car contest card, once; drawing for a new Mustang. That email address became a spam magnet.
Where I live, AT&T and Comcast are mostly a duopoly; but I have neither as my ISP. Depending on which neighborhood, we also have companies such as DSL Extreme, Paxio, and Sonic; the latter two offering FTTH in select areas. This smailler ISPs seem to take pride in not selling their customers out. It is like a competitive advantage over the MegaISPs.
Thanks for the article Ex, I haven’t seen any decrease in junk either, like you said, I think it has even increased? I just overwork my junk mail folder anyway.
How do I get rid of the Viagra ads?
Fwd them to Wilted Willy?
(just kidding!)
The concerns have very little to do with advertising. The bigger concern is that when ISPs start to monetize your web browsing that it could lead to insurance companies buying that data and using it against you. As a quick example, are you searching Diabetes related info because you or a family member are getting that or did you wind up there through a Wikipedia crawl? Medical insurance companies could use your browsing data to label you as having a pre-existing condition based on your web browsing data and jack up your insurance costs. That is what the big stink is about.
So this becomes a ‘guilt by association’, even if you were only doing that kind of research for a term paper, or maybe a genre novel such as detective fiction? That does explain some of the concern, but I think that what you’re describing has been happening all along.
The fact that this bill is repealed, when it never went into effect, doesn’t stop what was happening before and probably wouldn’t have stopped it if it had gone into effect.
What I have noticed is that if I do some research on agribiz, whether it’s for the purpose of making a correction in a chapter I may be working on, or for getting an up-to-date piece of information, I get ads for the most recent tractor designs, combines, fertilizers and farm stores, never mind chicken breeders. Then I have to click on the ‘not interested’ block on Google to get rid of that. This is the nuisance factor at work.
What you’re describing has been going on for about as long as the internet has been available to advertisers. It includes compiling online profiles about you, including your contact information, for no reason at all and you have to jump through hoops to get rid of that.
No, what you describe as nuisance is simply the evidence of a service (like Amazon, gmail, etc.) doing exactly what you gave them permission to do. If you do in fact have a problem with that service tracking your browsing history, you can log out of your Amazon account and gmail account and browse relatively anonymously.
What this law prohibited was your Internet Service Provider tracking all of your browsing history, whether you wanted them to or not, and doing so without asking your permission. You can’t very well opt out of internet entirely, can you?
If time warner is tracking all of my browsing history, I don’t have a single option to take my business elsewhere (a situation that applies to virtually all Americans–just insert a different ISP name). Now what if an anti-2A PAC happens to be interested in purchasing that info from time warner?
What Red6 and I are describing isn’t targeted advertising. I know that if I’m logged into my gmail account, anything I search for (even in another browser window) will be used by google to try to put specific ads/categories of ads on my screen. But I’d have a problem with my ISP doing it because they won’t need my permission, and there’s no competition in the ISP game.
This is why people need to pay attention to the net neutrality debate.
Okay, I understand. I used to log into a Microsoft Premier account, but when the charge bumped up a lot I dumped it and went to anonymous searches instead.
I really don’t think we’ve had true privacy for almost 20 years now.
ultimately, your browser is spying on you and relaying that info to google, MS, IBM, CIA, NSA, Guccifer, AARP, etc, etc, etc.
What killed this was the fact that ultimately, it has no delivered effect to protect anyone.
Analytics will run even when you use a VPN or “anonymous” browser.
What I find hilarious about the whole argument is that the government–the single greatest threat to your privacy on the planet–is somehow going to protect your privacy.
Hilarious. Do some research on “google analytics”…
Damn it, hit report not reply. Anyways, I don’t have to research google analytics. I work in the industry and used to work for a search engine company. I know exactly what they are pulling and doing with that data. My background is network engineering and security. I’m telling you this is different than what google analytics is doing.
Social Security numbers? That should be interesting.
That Grand Old Party never fails to disappoint.
Yes, that’s the reason I froze my credit reports some time ago.
Your SSN is public data.
Yes, but when your credit reports are frozen or locked, only you can unfreeze them.
Times change. On the face of my social security card, printed in red, are the words “Not To Be Used For Identification”.
So, your life would be better because you would have more control of where your personal information goes….
nope. If you use a computer you have no protection. None. Ever.
Use a computer as if every key stroke and bit is compromised. The ISP is not needed to get most of the data in any event.
For example, pay intellius 20 bucks and be amazed at the data you get.
One of the reasons I use Ghostery on my browser and StartPage for my search engine. If I have to, I’ll go back to using tor for my browser, and get a StartMail account for my email.
https://www.startpage.com/blog/ixquick/how-the-yahoo-hack-impacts-you-even-if-you-dont-have-a-yahoo-account-and-how-to-get-safe-again/
I also use WhatsApp for texting as much as I possible can.
If your information, say web habits, is commercially available, then the Government would not need a warrant to buy it, correct?
Oopsie.
If there is any validity to one report I heard earlier today, the new law only impacted some providers, as in more of that picking winners and losers crap. This one would perhaps have shut down some providers while it helped out others and did not much at all for internet security.