For a few weeks, the United States went through trying times for privacy online: a law that completely eliminated the power of customers to avoid that your information and personal data were sold unilaterally companies providers of Internet, was being discussed in the Congress.
Of course, the complaints were swift, since it was incredibly unfair for people who all the people browsing habits were sold to third parties so that they show them advertising custom browsers. Really needed this?
After much debate and many complaints of various organizations, law passed by hands of representatives of the U.S., and despite all the controversy, it was approved at the end of March this year. Despite the complaints of the people. Despite the protests and intense debates in the media. It was passed and there is no turning back.
Many might think that personal data are already property of Facebook and Google, because these services tend to show us suggestions based on our navigation, however these powers are limited only to services offered by these brands and not all our experience on the Internet. But with the ISPs (Internet Service Providers), things are different, because that what they sell is essentially everything we do on the network, including what we play on our consoles, what we ask to watch on Netflix, what we listen to on Spotify and obviously pages that we visit, regardless of the hour in which we do it. And all, to the end that brands that need it we can show ads and sell us things.
This is unfair for many reasons, but the main one is that citizens pay for the Internet service, which incidentally means that, in addition to selling – unintentionally – information, are paying them so these companies to deliver your data to third parties, without customers, users, individuals, or whatever you want to call them, give their explicit consent.
On this point, during the Obama administration, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed a regulation prohibiting this action companies service providers, however the current administration, both Government as the entity before mentioned, decided to forget the law, erasing all trace of it. Managers, of course, were Donald Trump and the Republican party in general, who today are being targeted with finger by affected principals of this action.
The sale of personal information of users is not a new practice for these companies, but according to The Verge, the ISP see this economic action as the future of their own industry, something that no doubt is incredibly harmful to all who sail on the web daily.
The question is, if the United States were able to pass a law like this, What if tomorrow is our countries who decide to do something similar?
