Verizon has a new strategy to undermine online privacy and net neutrality

Verizon has asked the Federal Communications Commission to preempt any state laws that regulate network neutrality and broadband privacy. It is possible that state governments might impose their own rules to protect consumers in their states. Verizon said that Congress and the FCC "have recently made great strides toward restoring the light-touch regulatory approach that had successfully applied to Internet Service Providers for most of the last two decades." But "some supporters of stringent regulation of ISPs are now looking to states and localities to frustrate these achievements," Verizon wrote. State broadband laws "pose a real and significant threat to restoring a light-touch, uniform regulatory framework for broadband service," Verizon said. "This white paper explains why the Commission can and should preempt these problematic state broadband laws and identifies several potential sources of authority for the Commission to do so." Verizon is still worried that states might restrict how Verizon can use customer data. "[L]egislative bodies in nearly 30 states—including California, New York, and Washington—have considered adopting privacy laws aimed at ISPs in response to Congress’s repudiation of the Commission’s privacy rules," Verizon wrote.