EFF: Broadband Privacy: 2017 Year in Review
Broadband Privacy: 2017 Year in Review It seems like a no-brainer that an Internet Service Provider (ISP) should have to get your permission to snoop on and use the private information you generate as you browse the Internet. In 2017, pressure from the telecom industry led to Congress and the president rolling back protections for broadband privacy, but there are many ways EFF was and is still fighting this battle. Late in 2016, the FCC passed rules to protect your privacy from invasions by your ISP. The rules—which prohibited things like selling your personal information to marketers, inserting undetectable tracking headers into your traffic, or recording your browsing history to build up a behavioral advertising profile on you without your consent—were a clear victory for privacy. Unsurprisingly, ISPs wishing to profit even more off of their customers were not happy about the restrictions and began lobbying hard to overturn the rules. The telecoms’ lobbying relied on easily dis...