FCC blocks rules that stop internet providers from secretly selling your data
Federal officials have moved to block rules set out by the Obama administration requiring internet providers to protect customer data -- a day before they were expected to come into effect. The rules would have prevented internet providers, such as AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, from selling customer data without their consent. Advertisers are increasingly pushing to gather more information on consumers, such as gender and race, as well as browsing history and the websites they visit, to better target advertising,
The rules, set out in October 2016, would impose stronger restrictions on internet providers who wish to provide customer information and data to advertisers. The rules also carve out data security requirements and compel internet providers to inform customers of data breaches. The rules say that customers have to explicitly opt-in to allow sharing of web browsing data, geolocation data, and health and financial information.
But FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, a Republican who previously served as a top Verizon lawyer, moved to prevent those rules from coming into effect. In a brief statement last month, Pai said that one of the previous administration's privacy rules "is not consistent" with the Federal Trade Commission's privacy standards. His argument was that the rules gave websites the ability to collect more customer data than internet providers, giving websites the edge in advertising.
Last year, when he voted against the rules under former Obama-appointed FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, Pai said in his dissenting opinion that consumers "should not have to be network engineers to understand who is collecting their data and they should not have to be lawyers to determine if their information is protected."
http://www.zdnet.com/article/fcc-chairman-moves-to-undo-rules-to-let-internet-providers-secretly-sell-your-data/
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Within minutes, the mailbox started accumulating spam emails. Now, how could that have happened, I wondered? Could Google have sold my email address before I even started using it? Surely not...
So, I abandoned gmail and never actually used the account to send or receive any email. I wonder of my mailbox is full? 