Internet providers will soon need permission to share your web browsing history

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New privacy rules require opting-in to sensitive sharing

In a win for privacy advocates, the FCC voted this morning to place new restrictions on internet providers that limit the information they can share about their subscribers.

When the rules go into place, likely sometime early next year, internet providers will be required to get explicit permission from subscribers before sharing “sensitive” information about them, such as their browsing history, their app usage, their location, and the content of emails and other communications.

 

This is all particularly revealing data, and none of it has been governed by FCC privacy rules until now. That means internet providers have been able to share or sell it to their partners, who might have used the information to advertise their own products and services to those customers.

 

Internet providers can’t force you into sharing sensitive data

 

Medical and financial information will also be restricted by these rules, as will social security numbers and information on children. Any information that isn’t covered by these categories can still be shared by internet providers unless consumers actively opt-out.

 

Internet providers will be required to inform customers of any information they’re collecting and update them anytime that changes.

“It is the consumer's information,” FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said before today’s vote. “How it is used should be the consumer’s choice, not the choice of some corporate algorithm.”

 

The rules also require that internet providers “take reasonable measures” to secure customers’ sensitive information. There are no specifics here — just guidelines — but they’re generally meant to ensure that security procedures are responsible and up to date. In the event of a breach, affected customers will have to be notified within 30 days.

 

In theory, rules are also in place to ensure that internet providers can’t force consumers to opt into sharing. The FCC will prohibit internet providers from refusing to serve customers who don’t agree. But it might still allow internet providers to charge customers more if they refuse to opt in. That’s something that could become pretty controversial — and there doesn’t appear to be any clear rules governing the practice.

 

The FCC will review any attempts to charge customers for privacy

 

Instead, the FCC simply says that it’ll review any instances of this — essentially, privacy fees — on a case-by-case basis. The commission said earlier this month that “consumers should not be forced to choose between paying inflated prices and maintaining their privacy,” so it sounds like the agency’s current leadership doesn’t intend to allow much of this to happen. But it seems that the rules may be vague enough that future leadership could let privacy fees slide.

 

Even without customers’ permission, there’s still one way that internet providers will be able to share their data: anonymously. The FCC will allow sharing to occur without permission so long as internet providers anonymize the data “so that it can’t be reasonably linked to a specific individual or device” and contractually prohibit partners from attempting to identify who that data belongs to.

 

That means your web browsing information could still be shared — but, in theory, it won’t be linked to you or your computer.

The rules, first proposed in a preliminary form back in March, passed in a 3-to-2 vote. They’ll go into place after being published in the Federal Register, likely a few months from now.

 

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Online privacy may be boosted by new FCC data rules

 NEW YORK (AP) -- New privacy rules may make it easier to escape at least some online tracking.

 

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved rules that require internet service providers like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon to ask customers' permission to use or share much of their data.

That could potentially make it harder for them to build advertising businesses that could serve as competition to Google and Facebook.

Those digital-ad behemoths are not covered by the new FCC rules.

Industry groups representing the cable, phone and advertising industries criticized the outcome of Thursday's vote.

Several consumer-advocacy groups hailed it, while saying it should go further.

Under the measure, for example, a broadband provider has to ask a customer's permission before it can tell an advertiser exactly where that customer is by tracking her phone and what interests she has gleaned from the websites she's visited on it and the apps she's used.

For some information that's not considered as private, like names and addresses, there's a more lenient approach.

Customers should assume that broadband providers can use that information, but they can "opt out" of letting them do so.

There will not be much visible difference in the online experience for most consumers.

There will be more notices from your home internet or wireless carrier saying what type of information they collect and that they'd like to use and share it.

"I think the new FCC rules are a step in the right direction," said Mark Bartholomew, a law professor at the University of Buffalo who studies advertises law and privacy.

"But ultimately I think people will go ahead and let themselves be tracked.

...We routinely click and agree to get what we want online without thinking too much about being tracked."

The Federal Communications Commission's measure was scaled back from an earlier proposal, but was still criticized by the advertising, telecommunications and cable industries.

Cable and phone companies want to increase revenue from ad businesses of their own - AT&T has said increasing advertising tailored to customers' preferences is one of its goals with its $85.4 billion purchase of HBO, CNN and TBS owner Time Warner.

 

Verizon has bought AOL and agreed to buy Yahoo in order to build up a digital-ad business.

But the new rules could make doing that more difficult.

Companies and industry groups say it's confusing and unfair that the regulations are stricter than the Federal Trade Commission standards that Google and Facebook operate under.

FCC officials approved the rules on a 3-2 vote Thursday, its latest contentious measure to pass on party lines.

"It is the consumer's information.

How it is to be used should be the consumers' choice, not the choice of some corporate algorithm," said Tom Wheeler, the Democratic chairman of the FCC who has pushed for the privacy measure and other efforts that have angered phone and cable companies.

AT&T and other players have fought the "net neutrality" rules, which went into effect last year, that say ISPs can't favor their some internet traffic.

Another measure that could make the cable-box market more competitive is still waiting for an FCC vote.

One of the Republican commissioners who voted against the privacy rules, Michael O'Rielly, said that they were senseless because broadband providers could still buy the information they would have collected, and that the prices consumers ultimately pay could rise.

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of an FCC official's name.

 

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BROADBAND_PRIVACY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-10-27-18-05-41

 

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