Though you might not have known it from following the news, the American Health Care Act — may it rest in peace — wasn’t the only thing on this past week’s congressional agenda. On Thursday, the Senate quietly decided, in a 50-48 party-line vote, to dispense with a suite of new Federal Communications Commission regulations that would have prevented internet service providers from selling their customers’ information to third party advertisers, according to an article in the Washington Post.
The Obama-era rules, which had yet to go into effect, would have prohibited companies like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T from sharing “sensitive” data, including browsing history and location information, without customers’ consent. The resolution, put forth by Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, also bars the FCC from adopting similar regulations in the future. It now moves to the House.
“The [blocked regulation] has the potential to limit consumer choice, stifle innovation, and jeopardize data security by destabilizing the internet ecosystem,” Flake said, in a statement Thursday. “Passing my resolution is the first step toward restoring a consumer-friendly approach to internet privacy regulation that empowers consumers to make informed choices on if and how their data can be shared.”
It’s an interesting argument to make. True, anyone alive today who has spent time on the internet should be no stranger to the ubiquity of programmatic (data-based and targeted) advertisements. Searching through Google or clicking “like” on Facebook gives those companies insights as to what it is you’re into, which they in turn sell to advertisers who want to reach the most relevant audiences. That’s not news. Creepy though it might be to see your search history follow you around the internet, you’re probably even used to it by now.
Seeing that programmatic ad sales are expected to top $32 billion this year, ISPs stand to make plenty of money with everything they know about you — that is, everything you do while using their service. Even better, since the digital ad market is pretty much controlled by two companies (Google and Facebook), more competition should, in theory, only stand to help you.
The debate around this issue largely stems from how you characterize the internet itself. Starting in 2016, regulatory responsibility of ISPs shifted from the Federal Trade Commission to the FCC, where it joins TV and radio broadcasters rather than companies like Google, Facebook or Amazon. The thinking is, essentially, that the internet is a utility, like electricity or natural gas, more than it is a service.
There’s a big difference between the two. As dominant as they are, Google, Facebook and Amazon aren’t the sum of the internet. You opt in by signing up, with the understanding that, as free services in need of monetizing your usage somehow, they sell the data you give them (searches and likes and the like). Convenience and social pressures aside, you can get by without them.
The internet itself, though, brought to you by Comcast, Verizon or AT&T, isn’t so easily opted out of, no more than electricity or heat is. If it was a luxury 20 years ago, it isn’t now. Your bank, your healthcare, your class schedule, your internship applications and your trusty campus newspaper, by virtue of existing in 2017, operate through the internet, and your ISP keeps tabs every time you log on to use them. Newly-appointed FCC chairman Ajit Pai has already relieved ISPs of the burden of protecting that data, the sort of stuff you don’t search or post on Facebook, from hackers and criminals. That those companies now stand to profit off of what is essentially the whole of your modern civilized existence isn’t “free market.” It’s frightening.
So where Flake and his colleagues see “consumer-friendly” in this move is tough to judge. Small businesses, ISPs are not, and the revenue they can make from selling your most private data comes on top of the hundreds we give them each year in ever-growing broadband bills. Despite the Senate’s best efforts, though, those of us who use the internet (i.e. all of us) still have the joy of one “empowered choice:” the one we make at the ballot.
