Today, the US House of Representatives voted to repeal a set of rules passed by the FCC last year which required ISPs to get a user’s explicit consent before selling their personal data (including browsing history).  The legislation still needs presidential approval, although the White House has stated that it “strongly supports” the repeal.

Critics of the repeal argue that ISPs will now have “free rein to hijack your searches, sell your data, and hammer you with unwanted advertisements” [EFF]. Those in favour of the repeal argue that the FCC rules were “additional and duplicative regulation[s]” that undermined the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commissioner (FTC), and that technology companies like Google aren’t subject to the same restraints in collecting user data, putting ISPs at a competitive disadvantage.

Here’s a selection of news sources of varying political orientations – pick your poison, or try them all:

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/house-set-vote-whether-isps-can-sell-your-data-without-n739166
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/congress-sides-cable-and-telephone-industry
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/03/28/house-votes-to-block-obama-era-online-privacy-rule.html
http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2017/03/28/rep-marsha-blackburn-fcc-rule-change-vote-eliminates-obama-admin-internet-tax-regulatory-power-grab/

To the extent possible, please bring your laptops to class tomorrow as course evaluations will take up the first 15 minutes of the class. If you want to do the evaluations in advance they are available at: https://eval.ctlt.ubc.ca/law

You will be able to complete evaluations until 11:59 pm on Sunday, April 9.

Thanks,

Jon