So, it's weird. I was on reddit this morning, and there seemed to be a bit of astroturfing going on about this.
The comments i replied to, which all claimed "this was a power grab by the fcc from the ftc" (which is ajit's talking points), are now deleted. In fact, every account i can find that said similar things is now deleted.
https://www.reddit.com/user/danberlin/comments/ (click on context for any of them).
In any case, for the curious, here's the history here:
The FTC historically did privacy for ISP's.
FTC has no section 5 authority (IE to make those kinds of rules) for common carriers. It's specifically exempted by the FTC act, and has been for 90 years. This has been upheld in court.
See https://iapp.org/news/a/the-att-v-ftc-common-carrier-ruling-...
In June 2015, the FCC reclassified the ISP's as common carriers.
Tada, the FTC rules no longer apply.
So the FCC regulated them with roughly the same set of rules.
Now they've undone this.
Now the claim is "well, the FTC should be doing it, it was just a power grab by the FCC". But that's not really accurate. The power grab, if any, was reclassifying them as common carriers. Once that was done, they pretty much had to regulate them because the FTC can't.
Because the FTC still doesn't have authority to regulate them, and they are still classed as common carriers, there is a void.
Now, it may actually be better for the FTC to be regulating them. But it's definitely the case that, for the moment, no privacy rules will apply to them because the FTC can't regulate them until the FTC's common carrier exemption is repealed.
Note, the speech is out of date a bit, because since then, the 9th circuit court ruled that the exemption is status based, not activity based, despite what the FTC wants.
I wish the original article contained any of this background instead of usual "they canceled the rules to protect your privacy and to defend you from hackers, because they are evil of course".
I hate when they do that - replace actual content of the legislation being talked about with genetic description like "aimed to protect you from hackers". Clearly there's a controversy between whether this protection is appropriate or not. I expect from reporting to tell me what controversy is about and let me decide which side I like, not to shove a pre-manufactured opinion down my throat. I've read the article and I still have no idea what the actual disagreement is about. But at least from the comment above I now know the background of what's going on.
> I expect from reporting to tell me what controversy is about and let me decide which side I like, not to shove a pre-manufactured opinion down my throat
I've yet to identify a news website that (a) doesn't do this and (b) writes enough about topics I care about.
I think we'll get back to quality reporting where we can rely on certain publishers, but we're not there yet.
Simply put, the internet gave the world the opportunity to create too much noise and it's going to be awhile until the dust settles or the fog clears.
For whatever reason, it seems like basically all media outlets these days are devoted to pushing a particular point of view rather than just providing background.
There may be attempted manipulation via flagging going on here as well: the story has 450 points over two hours and so should be glued to the top of the HN front page, yet it's only at seventh (and the comment count, at 288, is nowhere near the flamewar detection threshold).
Indeed, some people are flagging this entry, the question is: are they doing it because they are against political articles on HN, or, because they are part of some advocacy group trying to move this news from the top.
There's another reason too: defense against cognitive dissonance. If it's one's "own team" that did something bad, and that person is unwilling to give up allegiance to their team, they will often act out in other ways to resolve the conflict. Especially since the partisan aspect of the issue is not headlined, the defenses will be similarly under the surface.
I flagged this story and comments like this is why. If you want to argue the pros and cons of a government policy, do so. Reading accusations of astroturfing etc is not intellectually gratifying.
Personally I find the norm here of people constantly spouting off about "rules and norms" to be even more annoying.
This community has active moderators, moderation is their job, not yours. If you don't like a story or a post, flag it so the moderators can do their jobs and move on.
I would rather have a moderator look at a flagged post, determine it's inside/outside rules, and flag/unflag it, than have to read a dozen posts from the peanut gallery with snide rules lectures or debates on whether it's in the rules or not.
(not quite a direct response to you in particular, more of a general observation)
I think there is a norm of "no purely political stories", and an expectation that it is a story the hacker news audience will care about. Internet privacy rules seem very much in-bounds.
Just to followup, someone privately pointed out to me there appears to be at least some privacy protection afforded here by section 222 of the communications act:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/222
I think it's important people get a fair view, regardless of whether i may be initially right or wrong, so thought it was worth mentioning.
I have not delved into "what is the definition of a telecommunications carrier and do ISP's meet it" (or is there some other exception).
That they let this kind of shit go on, in addition to allowing The_Donald and other hate groups to exist on their site, is really disheartening and has really turned me off to even visiting much anymore. The place is overrun by bots, paid astroturfers, and vile racists.
I find the_donald annoying and idiotic. But the anti-Trump front page material on reddit is equally annoying and idiotic.
I don't mind political discussion or opinionated pieces if they're intelligent, open-minded, and at least intended to be productive (as opposed to outgrouping and other forms of villification). I'm not interested in 21st century "two minute hates".
This should be covered by NYTimes and the other news outlets. The lede is that this restriction was enforced by "the government" for a long time, and the FCC power grab argument is a non-starter.
Internet browsing history is like one's library, phone and mail records all lumped into one. The Internet is a basic necessity in the developed world, and so it should be treated like a utility (common carrier) that they are.
This is THE SAME THING as the USPS, your library branch, and your telephone carrier selling your transaction records for profit.
It's been covered fairly extensively by all the major news sources (Nytimes article here: https://mobile.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/03/23/us/politics/a...) but the Trump circus is just DDOSing all other news. If it weren't so likely to end with several of his staffers in jail, I'd think it was purposeful.
The comments i replied to, which all claimed "this was a power grab by the fcc from the ftc" (which is ajit's talking points), are now deleted. In fact, every account i can find that said similar things is now deleted. https://www.reddit.com/user/danberlin/comments/ (click on context for any of them).
In any case, for the curious, here's the history here:
The FTC historically did privacy for ISP's.
FTC has no section 5 authority (IE to make those kinds of rules) for common carriers. It's specifically exempted by the FTC act, and has been for 90 years. This has been upheld in court. See https://iapp.org/news/a/the-att-v-ftc-common-carrier-ruling-...
In June 2015, the FCC reclassified the ISP's as common carriers.
Tada, the FTC rules no longer apply.
So the FCC regulated them with roughly the same set of rules.
Now they've undone this.
Now the claim is "well, the FTC should be doing it, it was just a power grab by the FCC". But that's not really accurate. The power grab, if any, was reclassifying them as common carriers. Once that was done, they pretty much had to regulate them because the FTC can't.
Because the FTC still doesn't have authority to regulate them, and they are still classed as common carriers, there is a void.
Now, it may actually be better for the FTC to be regulating them. But it's definitely the case that, for the moment, no privacy rules will apply to them because the FTC can't regulate them until the FTC's common carrier exemption is repealed.
See Maureen(an FTC commissioner)'s speech here: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements...
Note, the speech is out of date a bit, because since then, the 9th circuit court ruled that the exemption is status based, not activity based, despite what the FTC wants.