Congress just voted to let internet providers sell your browsing history

Think Republicans care about you or your privacy? Think again. You are simply a means for them to provide their corporate supporters another way to make money off of you. Thank you to everyone who voted these asshole Republicans into office. Only 15 House GOPers broke ranks and voted with the 190 Democrats against this measure which Trump is expected to sign. All but 2 Republicans in the Senate voted for it (those 2 abstained to vote, cowards, all Dems voted against. The final vote was 50-48 for). That privacy regulation was put in place during the last administration; this pro-business administration and Congress just overturned that and there will be no way to put the regulation back into effect ever again because of the way this is being put through.

Congress Overturns Internet Privacy Regulation
By Brian Naylor
March 28, 2017

The House of Representatives has gone along with the Senate and voted 215-205 to overturn a yet-to-take-effect regulation that would have required Internet service providers — like Comcast, Verizon and Charter — to get consumers' permission before selling their data.

President Trump is expected to sign the rollback, according to a White House statement.

ISPs collect huge amounts of data on the websites people visit, including medical, financial and other personal information. The FCC regulation would have required ISPs to ask permission before selling that information to advertisers and others, a so-called opt-in provision.

During Tuesday's House debate, Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said the Republican-drafted measure would blow "a gaping hole in federal privacy protections." She said if consumers don't like Google's privacy protections, they can switch to another search engine, like Bing. But many consumers have little choice when it comes to their Internet provider, she said, especially in rural areas.

The Center for Democracy and Technology, however, argued that Congress "voted today to erase basic privacy protections for Americans in favor of the internet service providers' (ISPs) bottom line," calling the regulations "common-sense privacy and security protections for some of their most sensitive personal information."

Congress just voted to let internet providers sell your browsing history
By Taylor Hatmaker
March 28, 2017

Today in a 215-205 vote on Senate Joint Resolution 34 (H. Res. 230), the House voted to repeal broadband privacy regulations that the Obama administration’s FCC introduced in 2016. In a narrower vote than some expected, 15 Republicans broke rank to join the 190 Democrats who voted against the repeal. The FCC rules, designed to protect consumers, required ISPs to seek consent from their customers in order to share their sensitive private data (it’s worth noting that ISPs can collect it, either way). For consumers, the rollback is a bad deal no matter how you slice it.

Colorado Representative Jared Polis joined the chorus of objections on the House floor, elaborating on how limited consumers are with regard to ISPs. “This resolution undermines fundamental privacy for every internet user,” Polis said. “With a broadband provider, most of us don’t have a choice. You either sign up for your local provider or you don’t.”

Under the regulation rollback, there are few limits on the ways ISPs will be allowed to interact with sensitive user data. That includes not just allowing providers to create marketing profiles based on the browsing history of their users, but also letting them deploy undetectable tools that track web traffic, too.

Edit to add: roll call of votes
Senate: clerk.house.gov/evs/2017/roll202.xml#Y
House of Reps: clerk.house.gov/evs/2017/index.asp