It’s begun: Internet providers are pushing to repeal Obama-era privacy rules

Some of the nation's biggest Internet providers are asking the government to roll back a landmark set of privacy regulations it approved last fall — kicking off an effort by the industry and its allies to dismantle key Internet policies of the Obama years. In a petition filed to federal regulators Jan 2, a top Washington trade group whose members include Comcast, Charter and Cox argued that the rules should be thrown out. “They are unnecessary, unjustified, unmoored from a cost-benefit assessment, and unlikely to advance the Commission’s stated goal of enhancing consumer privacy,” wrote the Internet & Television Association, known as NCTA.

The petition joins a bevy of others from groups representing telecom companies, wireless carriers, tech companies and advertisers. The rules, which passed by a 3-to-2 partisan vote favoring Democrats at the Federal Communications Commission in October, are meant to keep Internet providers such as Comcast, Verizon and others from abusing the behavioral data they collect on customers as they regularly use the Internet.