Senators Prepare to Kill Broadband Privacy Protections

This is an automatic summary, original reduced by 54%.

ISPs and the politicians that love them are wasting no time in killing broadband consumer privacy protections.

The rules were passed by the FCC last year, and while the broadband sector engaged in a lot of pearl-clutching about over the restrictions they're relatively basic - requiring that ISPs inform broadband customers what's being collected, who it's being sold to, with the option to opt out if desired.

The rules are useful for broadband customers that, unlike services from Google and Facebook, often can't protest bad privacy practices by switching ISPs due to a lack of competition.

To that end, large ISPs have pressured Senators Jeff Flake and Marsha Blackburn to support a resolution that will roll back the FCC's broadband privacy rules via the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to eliminate agency rules with a simple majority vote.

It's worth noting that ISPs likely could have avoided the rules altogether if they hadn't pushed their luck on the privacy front.

The FCC was also concerned about AT&T and Comcast's plans to charge broadband customers more money to have their privacy protected.

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