Fast Company

As Google marks its 20th anniversary, our relationship with it isn’t quite as uncomplicated as it used to be. In the wake of Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, and fears that the Russians exploited Facebook and YouTube to influence the 2016 presidential election, people are more wary of tech companies these days–especially ones that harvest personal data. This trend won’t reverse itself anytime soon.

An Internet service provider can see every website that you choose to access. And with the scrapping of Obama-era privacy regulations in 2017, the US federal government has no rules against ISPs collecting and selling your information to marketers. But new tech fixes are plugging the privacy holes that the government won’t. The effort began in April, when Firefox browser maker Mozilla and content delivery network Cloudflare rolled out measures to block one of the easiest ways for ISPs to snoop.

The birth of wireless home internet has been so frustrating to observe. While major telecommunication companies like Verizon and T-Mobile make grand proclamations about disrupting home broadband with speedy 5G wireless internet service, the reality on the ground–or, rather, in the air–is harsher. Even with low buildout costs and limitless consumer demand, building out the wireless home internet of the future is a painstakingly methodical endeavor.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) joined CA state senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), firefighters, state legislators and community advocates in support of CA Senate Bill 822, which would enact the strongest net neutrality standards in the nation. “Once we have established California as a model of a state taking action, other states may follow,” she said. “And then I think you will see some of corporate America say, okay, let’s have a federal law because we don’t...want to do different things in different states,” she says.

Based in Boston, the internet provider Starry has launched Starry Connect, an initiative that equips the common areas, computer rooms, and hallways of the Boston Housing Authority’s Ausonia Apartments with free 5G internet for residents. More public housing developments, both in Boston and in other cities like Los Angeles, will come online soon through the program.