US Senate approves sale of browser history by providers
The US Senate has passed a bill that would allow Internet service providers to sell privacy-sensitive information such as Internet users’ browsing history to companies.
The Senate passed the bill on Thursday by 50 votes to 48. The House of Representatives has yet to consider it, but an approval is obvious because the Republicans also have a majority in this body. The House will probably vote on this in a few weeks. The proposal is expected to take effect later this year, subject to approval.
If the proposal is actually approved, providers will be allowed to share privacy-sensitive information with third parties later this year without the explicit consent of internet users. This specifically concerns information such as browsing history, the use of apps, financial information, data about the user’s location and the content of emails. Internet providers do not think it fair that stricter privacy rules apply to them than to websites such as Google and Facebook. They want to be able to trade this data. Earlier, the CTIA, an interest group of American internet providers, already argued for the abolition of these privacy rules, which come from the FCC.
Ahead of the Senate vote, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal called the resolution a direct attack on consumer rights and their privacy. The initiator of the proposal, Republican Senator Jeff Flake, disagrees, saying the new rules send a strong signal that federal agencies can no longer get away with restricting constitutional rights on their own. He called the privacy rules previously instituted by the FCC a “bureaucratic coup.”
Flake is referring to the privacy rules that the FCC adopted last year under the leadership of previous chairman Tom Wheeler. Under these rules, ISPs must inform their customers about the information they collect about users. The current Republican chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, voted against these rules as a committee member at the time. A few weeks ago, he already reversed some of the rules. He said the special privacy rules for ISPs are too confusing for US consumers.
The US Civil Liberties Union has reacted with disappointment to the vote in the Senate. The organization believes that the Senate is thereby sacrificing the privacy rights of Americans for the profit interests of large Internet companies such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon and calls on the House of Representatives to vote against the resolution.
The Senate vote on a resolution invoking the Congressional Review Act. Dating back to the 1990s, this law gives Congress the power to overrule new federal rules from agencies such as the FCC through a resolution through a legislative process. This process has now been initiated by the Senate. Republicans plan to use this drug more often to remove rules from the Obama administration. Until recently, this remedy was a very rare procedure; in the last twenty-three years it has only been used once.
If rules from an agency are removed by a resolution of Congress, the Congressional Review Act provides that in principle that agency may no longer make new rules on that subject. On paper, Congress has 60 days in this proceeding to review new enacted federal agency rules. However, this 60-day period will not begin until the agencies publish a report on the new rules. Because this has not happened in a number of cases, Republicans can even revise rules from the early days of the Obama administration.