Senate agrees to ditch broadband users' privacy rights

[McFurd]

Consumer Affairs - 3/23/2017 - James R. Hood - The House is expected to do the same, bowing to advertisers' demands. The Senate today voted 50-48 to ditch broadband privacy rules that the Federal Communications Commission issued last year, and the House is expected to follow suit. Congress doesn't often move quickly but in this case, the Senate used the so-called Congressional Review Act to axe the privacy rules before they even had a chance to go into effect, bowing to the demands of advertisers who say the ability to track Americans' every move is vital to innovation. “This is an important victory for all who benefit from the data-driven marketing economy, including tens of thousands of businesses and nonprofit organizations and hundreds of millions of consumers," said Emmett O’Keefe of the Data & Marketing Association, an advertising trade group. "Consumers understand the value that relevant ads provide, and put the value of the services they get for free on the internet at $1,200 per year." The Consumer Federation of America wasn't so chipper and said the Senate had "used a sledgehammer, the Congressional Review Act, to smash hopes that Americans will finally have real control over the highly personal information that their broadband internet service providers (ISPs) can collect about them." "There is no excuse for robbing Americans of these rights," CFA said in a statement, adding that it is "a shame that the majority of Senators voted to put special corporate interests ahead of the privacy interests of Americans." Read more @ https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/se ... 32317.html