In Win for Internet Providers, Congress Strikes Down Online Privacy Protections

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It's no secret that internet consumers are often willing to consent to user agreements before bothering to read the fine print. So it might come as a surprise to some of those users that internet service providers (ISPs) such as Verizon and Comcast are currently free to sell user data and browsing histories to advertisers.

In October 2016, during the final months of the Obama presidency, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) created a set of regulations aimed at granting internet privacy protections to the public. These rules, which would have required ISPs to get permission from users before selling their private data to advertisers, were going to take effect later this year.

Now, these rules are set to be one of the first casualties of the GOP-led Congress' rollback of federal regulations. Last week, in a 50-48 party line vote, the Senate moved to repeal the internet privacy regulations, and yesterday Congress also voted in favor of the repeal.

Dallas Harris is a policy fellow at Public Knowledge, a non-partisan consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. She joins The Takeaway to explain how alarmed internet users should be about this renewed loss of privacy.