Senate Passes a Bill to Allow ISPS to Sell your Private Online data

The Senate voted to kill Obama-era online privacy regulations , a first step toward allowing internet providers such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon to sell your browsing habits and other personal information as they expand their own online ad businesses. Without those protections, consumer advocates fear that broadband providers will be able to do what they like with people's data. Consumer advocates also point out that it can be hard, in many areas of the country, to dump your cable or phone company for another one if you don't like its practices. Of course, it's also hard to stop using Google or Facebook.

Of course, Google and Facebook already track you. But proponents of the privacy measure argued that the company that sells you your internet connection can see even more about you: every website you visit, every app that sends or receives data, everyone you email and many that you message. Telecom companies argue that companies like Google know far more about users than they do. Undoing the Federal Communications Commission's regulation leaves people's online information in a murky area. Today, you can tell a broadband provider not to use your data. Experts say federal law still requires broadband providers to protect customer information - but it doesn't spell out how or what companies must do. That's what the now endangered rules from the Federal Communications Commission aimed to do. "There's kind of a void," said Perkins Coie telecom attorney Marc Martin.

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