“Our digital footprints are no longer in sand, they are in wet cement. The monetization of data is big business. The market incentives to keep our data and slice and dice it to inform commercial activity are enormous," said Jessica Rosenworcel, one of the three commissioners who voted to approve new rules governing broadband service providers, explaining the raison d’etre of her decision.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has passed new rules that require broadband provider to secure opt-in customer permission before sharing sensitive personal information, including browsing activity, geolocation and financial details.
The agency voted 3-2 on Thursday to adopt the said rules, which also makes notifications of data breaches by ISPs mandatory.
Supporters of the new rules explained that they were necessary after the agency reclassified broadband as a regulated service in 2015. The authority to regulate broadband services was shifted from the Federal Trade Commission to the FCC after its reclassification.
However, critics of the new rules say they would be helpless to stop web-based companies such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Twitter from collecting and sharing their users’ sensitive data.
"This is not data-driven decision making. It's corporate favouritism," Commissioner Ajit Pai noted.
He added that the more stringent rules for broadband service providers will only lead to consumer confusion. Users "shouldn't have to be network engineers to understand who's collecting their data, and they shouldn't need law degrees to determine whether their data is going to be protected," Pai further stressed.
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