Broadband ISPs’ Big Data Privacy Grab

[Commentary] The Internet service providers and ad-industry lobbyists disingenuously claim that having the Federal Trade Commission protect consumer privacy for all Internet companies, including ISPs and data giants like Google, is the most effective approach. It would be so, perhaps, if the FTC had any real clout.

The ISPs, data-marketing companies and their supporters are also fighting against the privacy rule because they know we are also on the eve of a new era — the Internet of Things — that will generate even more personal information about us. In today’s digital era, data is power. That’s why we shouldn’t let Congress and the broadband companies overturn the first real protections we can have. This will be an opportunity to challenge Donald Trump’s vision of the United States as principally a corporatist society where the welfare of commercial special interests is more important than the needs of the average American.

[Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a Washington-D.C.-based consumer digital rights group.]