13 ms·

Republicans hope to overturn internet privacy rules

127 points by coldcode 10y ago

coldcode 10y ago
Why does anyone think allowing ISPs to collect and operate on customer information with impunity is a good idea for the general public, who often have no alternatives?
- shmerl 10y ago
  They don't serve the general public.
- conception 10y ago
  I don't agree with the stance, but I suspect the answer would be something like - "This would allow the companies to make more money which grows the economy and shareholder value which is good for the general population."
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Because there is money/power involved for them.
- rayiner 10y ago
  It's a proxy war in a battle between industry sectors. > Telecoms unsurprisingly object to the rules. They feel they're subject to more stringent regulation than many of the websites you visit, and believe that an opt-in requirement hurts their ability to target you with personalized ads. Silicon Valley would similarly chafe at the idea of opt-in requirements before being able to use customer data. You can raise the competition issue, and that's fair to a degree. But I have more realistic choices for say my cell phone plan than I do the search engine I use. And I have every little choice in, e.g., whether or not I send emails to gmail/yahoo/etc. users. As for why Republicans take up this particular mantle, there is a cynical take and a charitable one. Telecom companies employ hundreds of thousands of people, and are geographically dispersed. Silicon Valley is highly concentrated and doesn't employ that many people. AT&T, for example, has thousands of employees in Tennessee. Google has a few hundred. Does Facebook have any? IMHO, everybody making Internet infrastructure should be required to get opt-in consent before using private customer information.
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    > And I have every little choice in, e.g., whether or not I send emails to gmail/yahoo/etc. users. You could encrypt. (Not that that's really a rebuttal, all things considered, I just felt it worth noting...)
  - cpburns2009 10y ago
    That's interesting. I've never heard this description before which sounds plausible for actually giving a reason behind it.
  - wlesieutre 10y ago
    > But I have more realistic choices for say my cell phone plan than I do the search engine I use. And I have every little choice in, e.g., whether or not I send emails to gmail/yahoo/etc. users. If I don't want to use Google because of their tracking, I can use DuckDuckGo. If I don't want to use Comcast because of their tracking, my other options are Comcast, Comcast, Comcast, and Comcast. I think you're being a bit disingenuous by focusing on cellular carriers and not mentioning wired broadband providers where we have no competition, no consumer choice, and no market solution to abuses by the service provider. Your criticism of email is somewhat more fair. While there are alternative services available that you could use, the majority of your contacts are going to choose to fork over all of your information to Google. But if you're really concerned about that, you can find other channels to contact them. That's still a better situation than the ISP market that most Americans are stuck with.
    - asddddd 10y ago
      I'll just note that you framed it very narrowly as "wired broadband" so the argument works; someone who takes the opposing view might consider dialup, 4g, satellite, or other services to be competition you could switch to. They likely have more market share than DuckDuckGo compared to Google/Bing.
      - wlesieutre 10y ago
        I guess my criteria is "things I can binge Netflix on." Neither dialup or 4G fits the bill due to low speed or small data caps. Gaming is a slightly smaller niche that rules out satellite on account of the >0.5 second latency. And that "niche" is still enormous. With very few exceptions, every person playing any realtime online games from an Xbox, PlayStation, other console, or PC is doing it over a wired broadband connection and can't consider other services to switch to.
- mtgx 10y ago
  My wild guess: because lobbying money says so.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  Because it will make my shares in those ISPs go up a quarter of a point!
shatteredvisage 10y ago
What can we do to stop this?
- jandrese 10y ago
  Elect Bernie Sanders. Other than that, write to your representatives and tell them in no unambiguous language that they are sacrificing liberty for a feeling of security. Remind them that their own internet use could be monitored by their political opponents because once the framework is in place it is far too easy to abuse it.
  - joelrunyon 10y ago
    I know you're being facetious, but did Bernie really have a stance on internet privacy? It was pretty clear the main platform he had fleshed out was just economic policy.
    - jandrese 10y ago
      http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-privacy-and-digital-rights/ http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-privacy-and-digital...
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      Optics and media coverage aside, it was pretty clear that most people criticizing Bernie hadn't actually read his platform.
  - e40 10y ago
    There's been a groundswell recently, and the GOP response: they are not in my district, they are liberals causing trouble, etc, etc. Until people in districts with these crazy people decide to throw them out of office, there is no downside to their behavior.
    - iamatworknow 10y ago
      >There's been a groundswell recently, and the GOP response: they are not in my district, they are liberals causing trouble, etc, etc. We're seeing this in my congressional district right now (NY21). A lot of people here are upset because our representative has basically been in hiding since last year's election (which she won handily as a young republican incumbent in a very red, rural district). She has held no announced public events, has canceled some that were scheduled, and only communicates through sound bytes provided by her staff. So there have been protests and groups have formed that regularly march at, write to, and call her offices, asking for town hall meetings where they can actually discuss the issues at hand. [0][1] So how has she responded? She put out a statement on Facebook that included the following [2]: >Many members of various protest groups have repeatedly harassed my hardworking staff and have personally targeted specific staff members. This type of intentionally disruptive behavior is unacceptable and unhelpful to civil public discourse. If it gets out of hand, we will continue to contact local law enforcement and U.S. Capitol Police. >It is imperative that my staff is able to continue to focus on federal casework on behalf of the constituents of New York’s 21st District, and that my constituents understand that despite the efforts from these organized disruptors, we will always continue our work to best serve you. Two points: 1. I've met these protesters and been to their rallies. I'm part of the facebook group they use to organize the events. They're everyday people, of all political parties, who have gathered civilly and clearly care about the issues our district faces. Maybe there are some bad actors, but I haven't met them. If they're guilty of anything it's being a little annoying, and that's not a crime. 2. Her comments in that statement very clearly are trying to paint the protesters as somehow working against her and her constituents. But we are her constituents! [0] https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/33413/20170215/stefanik-feuds-with-protesters-over-town-hall-meetings https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/33413/201... [1] https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/33418/20170216/north-country-activists-reject-stefanik-s-accusations-of-harassment-and-disruption https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/33418/201... [2] https://www.facebook.com/RepEliseStefanik/posts/1272176312848554 https://www.facebook.com/RepEliseStefanik/posts/127217631284...
grondilu 10y ago
Why do people seem so obsessed with privacy on the net? I mean, I get that privacy is important. I would not like the walls of my house to be transparent, for instance. But that's the thing : they're not, and this law would not change that. What I mean is that I, for better or worse, make a clear distinction between privacy in the physical word and privacy online. I basically don't consider anything I do online "really" private. The only reason I assume nobody knows what I do there is that I presume nobody cares. And if I really wanted to hide what I'm doing I'd use TOR, GnuPG or something like that.
- draw_down 10y ago
  Why do republicans seem so obsessed with making everything shittier instead of making an earnest attempt to fix some of our country's problems?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Because that's where the money is.
  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    I don't understand it either. Instead of voting 40 times to abolish Obamacare they could have introduced changes to make it better. Or if there are problems with some regulations they could improve them instead of just getting rid of them like they want to with Dodd-Frank.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - mindslight 10y ago
    If you actually want to know, each party markets to the grassroots concerns of the people in their audience. After they get in power, what they actually implement is the agenda of their corporate sponsors. If you want to understand the situation: 1. Try suppressing your immediate visceral reaction to issues that grassroots Republicans care about. Open your mind, tune into some decent red media, and ask yourself "what if there is some truth in this?" 2. Avoid being drawn into the groupthink that condones the actions of your own team as altruistic. Open your mind and ask yourself "what if there is some oppressive agenda behind this?" Unfortunately, you will have to find media from back when Democrats had power. Now that the other team is the aggressor and your team is the opposition, it will be impossible to perceive (your team is now only "fighting the good fight", as they lack power to implement their sponsors' policies). But my message goes equally for the red team as well, reversing the parties.
jhack 10y ago
"Small government"
- strictnein 10y ago
  Well, yes, the government would be ever so slightly smaller with this change.
1024core 10y ago
I'd love to hear from some Republican supporters who think this is a good idea. More often than not, the party of "individual rights" is anything but. I don't mean to start a flame war, but am genuinely curious.
- e40 10y ago
  I believe there won't be any people around here that vote Republican that will support this. The GOP (we can discuss when it happened, but it definitely) has gone off the rails in terms of supporting their constituents. They feed them red meat in terms of social issues, and then do what they want on economic and other issues, which are almost always completely pro-business and anti-labor.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    The following is less an attempt to start a partisan argument than to clarify the lines along which such arguments have taken place previously. >The GOP (we can discuss when it happened, but it definitely) has gone off the rails in terms of supporting their constituents. They feed them red meat in terms of social issues, and then do what they want on economic and other issues, which are almost always completely pro-business and anti-labor. Isn't that, well, normal? I was under the impression that anti-labor Republicanism started around the time of Ronald Reagan and continued indefinitely since then. If anything is especially original about what the Republican Party are doing now, it's that their Presidential candidate ran on an atypically liberal economic platform (no cuts to entitlement programs, major infrastructure spending, rebuilding the blue-collar jobs base in the Midwest), while their Congressional majority continue the traditional Reagan Republican legislative program. Precisely this division on economic issues, more than anything else, is what has always stopped me from voting Republican. It has done so even when I thought that some or another Republican, especially a moderate, had a valid point or two, or just seemed like a decent and honest person. For example, I always thought that John McCain seemed like an honorable, patriotic Senator who stood up for civil liberties and veterans, but oh well, 2008 was the middle of an economic crisis and the Republicans are anti-labor. So I voted a firm Obama instead of being a swing voter. What's the perception on the Republican side of the divide? That the party was originally pro-labor in its own way, but conservative on social issues? That there was an appropriate time in our history to be anti-labor?
astrodust 10y ago
You literally have no idea what you're talking about.
- dang 10y ago
  Comments like this aren't allowed on HN regardless of how ignorant someone else is, so please don't post them. When someone is mistaken, show them how (and more importantly, the rest of us) by adding information. If you don't want to do that or don't have time, posting nothing is a fine option too. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13661688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13661688 and marked it off-topic.
michaelbuddy 10y ago
Sadly engadget is not a reliable source, so there's really nothing to take specifically from this article at face value (not that it said much other than FUD anyway). Lately they've been caught making or repeating way too much fake news related to politics and even entertainment topics.

127 points by coldcode 10y ago

Why does anyone think allowing ISPs to collect and operate on customer information with impunity is a good idea for the general public, who often have no alternatives?

shmerl 10y ago
They don't serve the general public.
conception 10y ago
I don't agree with the stance, but I suspect the answer would be something like - "This would allow the companies to make more money which grows the economy and shareholder value which is good for the general population."
M_Grey 10y ago
Because there is money/power involved for them.
rayiner 10y ago
It's a proxy war in a battle between industry sectors. > Telecoms unsurprisingly object to the rules. They feel they're subject to more stringent regulation than many of the websites you visit, and believe that an opt-in requirement hurts their ability to target you with personalized ads. Silicon Valley would similarly chafe at the idea of opt-in requirements before being able to use customer data. You can raise the competition issue, and that's fair to a degree. But I have more realistic choices for say my cell phone plan than I do the search engine I use. And I have every little choice in, e.g., whether or not I send emails to gmail/yahoo/etc. users. As for why Republicans take up this particular mantle, there is a cynical take and a charitable one. Telecom companies employ hundreds of thousands of people, and are geographically dispersed. Silicon Valley is highly concentrated and doesn't employ that many people. AT&T, for example, has thousands of employees in Tennessee. Google has a few hundred. Does Facebook have any? IMHO, everybody making Internet infrastructure should be required to get opt-in consent before using private customer information.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  > And I have every little choice in, e.g., whether or not I send emails to gmail/yahoo/etc. users. You could encrypt. (Not that that's really a rebuttal, all things considered, I just felt it worth noting...)
- cpburns2009 10y ago
  That's interesting. I've never heard this description before which sounds plausible for actually giving a reason behind it.
- wlesieutre 10y ago
  > But I have more realistic choices for say my cell phone plan than I do the search engine I use. And I have every little choice in, e.g., whether or not I send emails to gmail/yahoo/etc. users. If I don't want to use Google because of their tracking, I can use DuckDuckGo. If I don't want to use Comcast because of their tracking, my other options are Comcast, Comcast, Comcast, and Comcast. I think you're being a bit disingenuous by focusing on cellular carriers and not mentioning wired broadband providers where we have no competition, no consumer choice, and no market solution to abuses by the service provider. Your criticism of email is somewhat more fair. While there are alternative services available that you could use, the majority of your contacts are going to choose to fork over all of your information to Google. But if you're really concerned about that, you can find other channels to contact them. That's still a better situation than the ISP market that most Americans are stuck with.
  - asddddd 10y ago
    I'll just note that you framed it very narrowly as "wired broadband" so the argument works; someone who takes the opposing view might consider dialup, 4g, satellite, or other services to be competition you could switch to. They likely have more market share than DuckDuckGo compared to Google/Bing.
    - wlesieutre 10y ago
      I guess my criteria is "things I can binge Netflix on." Neither dialup or 4G fits the bill due to low speed or small data caps. Gaming is a slightly smaller niche that rules out satellite on account of the >0.5 second latency. And that "niche" is still enormous. With very few exceptions, every person playing any realtime online games from an Xbox, PlayStation, other console, or PC is doing it over a wired broadband connection and can't consider other services to switch to.
mtgx 10y ago
My wild guess: because lobbying money says so.
st3v3r 10y ago
Because it will make my shares in those ISPs go up a quarter of a point!

shatteredvisage 10y ago

What can we do to stop this?

jandrese 10y ago
Elect Bernie Sanders. Other than that, write to your representatives and tell them in no unambiguous language that they are sacrificing liberty for a feeling of security. Remind them that their own internet use could be monitored by their political opponents because once the framework is in place it is far too easy to abuse it.
- joelrunyon 10y ago
  I know you're being facetious, but did Bernie really have a stance on internet privacy? It was pretty clear the main platform he had fleshed out was just economic policy.
  - jandrese 10y ago
    http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-privacy-and-digital-rights/ http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-privacy-and-digital...
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    Optics and media coverage aside, it was pretty clear that most people criticizing Bernie hadn't actually read his platform.
- e40 10y ago
  There's been a groundswell recently, and the GOP response: they are not in my district, they are liberals causing trouble, etc, etc. Until people in districts with these crazy people decide to throw them out of office, there is no downside to their behavior.
  - iamatworknow 10y ago
    >There's been a groundswell recently, and the GOP response: they are not in my district, they are liberals causing trouble, etc, etc. We're seeing this in my congressional district right now (NY21). A lot of people here are upset because our representative has basically been in hiding since last year's election (which she won handily as a young republican incumbent in a very red, rural district). She has held no announced public events, has canceled some that were scheduled, and only communicates through sound bytes provided by her staff. So there have been protests and groups have formed that regularly march at, write to, and call her offices, asking for town hall meetings where they can actually discuss the issues at hand. [0][1] So how has she responded? She put out a statement on Facebook that included the following [2]: >Many members of various protest groups have repeatedly harassed my hardworking staff and have personally targeted specific staff members. This type of intentionally disruptive behavior is unacceptable and unhelpful to civil public discourse. If it gets out of hand, we will continue to contact local law enforcement and U.S. Capitol Police. >It is imperative that my staff is able to continue to focus on federal casework on behalf of the constituents of New York’s 21st District, and that my constituents understand that despite the efforts from these organized disruptors, we will always continue our work to best serve you. Two points: 1. I've met these protesters and been to their rallies. I'm part of the facebook group they use to organize the events. They're everyday people, of all political parties, who have gathered civilly and clearly care about the issues our district faces. Maybe there are some bad actors, but I haven't met them. If they're guilty of anything it's being a little annoying, and that's not a crime. 2. Her comments in that statement very clearly are trying to paint the protesters as somehow working against her and her constituents. But we are her constituents! [0] https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/33413/20170215/stefanik-feuds-with-protesters-over-town-hall-meetings https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/33413/201... [1] https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/33418/20170216/north-country-activists-reject-stefanik-s-accusations-of-harassment-and-disruption https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/33418/201... [2] https://www.facebook.com/RepEliseStefanik/posts/1272176312848554 https://www.facebook.com/RepEliseStefanik/posts/127217631284...

grondilu 10y ago

Why do people seem so obsessed with privacy on the net? I mean, I get that privacy is important. I would not like the walls of my house to be transparent, for instance. But that's the thing : they're not, and this law would not change that. What I mean is that I, for better or worse, make a clear distinction between privacy in the physical word and privacy online. I basically don't consider anything I do online "really" private. The only reason I assume nobody knows what I do there is that I presume nobody cares. And if I really wanted to hide what I'm doing I'd use TOR, GnuPG or something like that.

draw_down 10y ago
Why do republicans seem so obsessed with making everything shittier instead of making an earnest attempt to fix some of our country's problems?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Because that's where the money is.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  I don't understand it either. Instead of voting 40 times to abolish Obamacare they could have introduced changes to make it better. Or if there are problems with some regulations they could improve them instead of just getting rid of them like they want to with Dodd-Frank.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- mindslight 10y ago
  If you actually want to know, each party markets to the grassroots concerns of the people in their audience. After they get in power, what they actually implement is the agenda of their corporate sponsors. If you want to understand the situation: 1. Try suppressing your immediate visceral reaction to issues that grassroots Republicans care about. Open your mind, tune into some decent red media, and ask yourself "what if there is some truth in this?" 2. Avoid being drawn into the groupthink that condones the actions of your own team as altruistic. Open your mind and ask yourself "what if there is some oppressive agenda behind this?" Unfortunately, you will have to find media from back when Democrats had power. Now that the other team is the aggressor and your team is the opposition, it will be impossible to perceive (your team is now only "fighting the good fight", as they lack power to implement their sponsors' policies). But my message goes equally for the red team as well, reversing the parties.

jhack 10y ago

"Small government"

strictnein 10y ago
Well, yes, the government would be ever so slightly smaller with this change.

1024core 10y ago

I'd love to hear from some Republican supporters who think this is a good idea. More often than not, the party of "individual rights" is anything but. I don't mean to start a flame war, but am genuinely curious.

e40 10y ago
I believe there won't be any people around here that vote Republican that will support this. The GOP (we can discuss when it happened, but it definitely) has gone off the rails in terms of supporting their constituents. They feed them red meat in terms of social issues, and then do what they want on economic and other issues, which are almost always completely pro-business and anti-labor.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  The following is less an attempt to start a partisan argument than to clarify the lines along which such arguments have taken place previously. >The GOP (we can discuss when it happened, but it definitely) has gone off the rails in terms of supporting their constituents. They feed them red meat in terms of social issues, and then do what they want on economic and other issues, which are almost always completely pro-business and anti-labor. Isn't that, well, normal? I was under the impression that anti-labor Republicanism started around the time of Ronald Reagan and continued indefinitely since then. If anything is especially original about what the Republican Party are doing now, it's that their Presidential candidate ran on an atypically liberal economic platform (no cuts to entitlement programs, major infrastructure spending, rebuilding the blue-collar jobs base in the Midwest), while their Congressional majority continue the traditional Reagan Republican legislative program. Precisely this division on economic issues, more than anything else, is what has always stopped me from voting Republican. It has done so even when I thought that some or another Republican, especially a moderate, had a valid point or two, or just seemed like a decent and honest person. For example, I always thought that John McCain seemed like an honorable, patriotic Senator who stood up for civil liberties and veterans, but oh well, 2008 was the middle of an economic crisis and the Republicans are anti-labor. So I voted a firm Obama instead of being a swing voter. What's the perception on the Republican side of the divide? That the party was originally pro-labor in its own way, but conservative on social issues? That there was an appropriate time in our history to be anti-labor?

astrodust 10y ago

You literally have no idea what you're talking about.

dang 10y ago
Comments like this aren't allowed on HN regardless of how ignorant someone else is, so please don't post them. When someone is mistaken, show them how (and more importantly, the rest of us) by adding information. If you don't want to do that or don't have time, posting nothing is a fine option too. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13661688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13661688 and marked it off-topic.

michaelbuddy 10y ago

Sadly engadget is not a reliable source, so there's really nothing to take specifically from this article at face value (not that it said much other than FUD anyway). Lately they've been caught making or repeating way too much fake news related to politics and even entertainment topics.