US Senate votes to undo FCC internet privacy rules
So, it's weird. I was on reddit this morning, and there seemed to be a bit of astroturfing going on about this.<p>The comments i replied to, which all claimed "this was a power grab by the fcc from the ftc" (which is ajit's talking points), are now deleted. In fact, every account i can find that said similar things is now deleted.
<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/danberlin/comments/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/user/danberlin/comments/</a> (click on context for any of them).<p>In any case, for the curious, here's the history here:<p>The FTC historically did privacy for ISP's.<p>FTC has no section 5 authority (IE to make those kinds of rules) for common carriers.  It's specifically exempted by the FTC act, and has been for 90 years.  This has been upheld in court.
See <a href="https://iapp.org/news/a/the-att-v-ftc-common-carrier-ruling-and-how-it-changes-common-carrier-regulation/" rel="nofollow">https://iapp.org/news/a/the-att-v-ftc-common-carrier-ruling-...</a><p>In June 2015, the FCC reclassified the ISP's as common carriers.<p>Tada, the FTC rules no longer apply.<p>So the FCC regulated them with roughly the same set of rules.<p>Now they've undone this.<p>Now the claim is "well, the FTC should be doing it, it was just a power grab by the FCC". But that's not really accurate. The power grab, if any, was reclassifying them as common carriers. Once that was done, they pretty much had to regulate them because the FTC can't.<p>Because the FTC <i>still</i> doesn't have authority to regulate them, <i>and</i> they are still classed as common carriers, there is a void.<p>Now, it may actually be <i>better</i> for the FTC to be regulating them. But it's definitely the case that, for the moment, no privacy rules will apply to them because the FTC <i>can't</i> regulate them until the FTC's common carrier exemption is repealed.<p>See Maureen(an FTC commissioner)'s speech here:
<a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/893473/151204plispeech1.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements...</a><p>Note, the speech is out of date a bit, because since then, the 9th circuit court ruled that the exemption is status based, not activity based, despite what the FTC wants.