Privacy Unprotected

Trump and his administration recently rolled back Internet privacy regulations that had been put in place at the end of Obama’s presidency. This action was taken in the midst of the drama surrounding the affordable care act earlier this year. Due to the high profile nature of those events, Republicans on Capitol Hill moved forward with their plan to dismantle the new privacy protections and President Trump signed the bill without giving any statement to the public about the rollback.

Various privacy protections were cut with the actions taken by Trump and his administration. The Obama administration and the FCC required “Internet service providers to get explicit consent before they gather their customers’ data – their browsing histories, the locations of businesses they physically visit and the mobile applications they use – and sell it to third parties.” The repeal of these protections will give service providers the freedom to collect and sell customer data regardless of their opinion on the matter.

The reason that this bill was passed so easily is because of the organizations involved in supporting and fighting it. On the side of supporters were tech, cable, advertising, and Internet companies. On the opposing side were consumer and civil rights groups. Naturally, the aggregated economic and political power of the big companies supporting the bill trounced the efforts of the consumer and civil rights groups pushing for the preservation of the privacy protections that had been instated less than a year ago.

The implications of the privacy cutbacks affect consumers as well as companies. Consumers will have more of their information up for grabs by the companies that lobbied for the repeal. This means that companies will be able to create better profiles of their customers to sell to third party companies, ultimately generating more advertising revenue. With these more comprehensive profiles, the marketing departments of various companies can better tailor their advertisements to each person, targeting consumers specifically. While all of this is happening, consumers can potentially feel threatened and betrayed by their Internet service providers because they’re suddenly seeing such targeted advertising.

The effects of the cutbacks reach even further as these can begin the march toward infringement on net neutrality. If net neutrality is broken down, businesses and social activism groups can be greatly affected. Start-ups and small businesses rely on the internet to grow and enter the market. If they are hit with a ton of restrictions, their ability to expand becomes exponentially more difficult. The internet is a growing part of establishing an audience and if net neutrality is dismantled, consumers and businesses will see barriers in communication and both will lose out in this restricted market. Net neutrality encourages competition and competition often regulates the market; altering net neutrality could alter markets and in turn the economy.

Social activism groups also rely on the internet and if net neutrality is threatened their operation could be greatly at risk. The globalization and connectivity of organizations that came about with the advent of the internet has become essential to the productivity of social movements. If net neutrality comes under fire groups will find it harder to voice their opinion, organize protests, and make change in their communities. Even on a smaller level, many groups create petitions online and if net neutrality is dismantled, even something as simple as an online petition could be prohibited.

The republican’s action to repeal the privacy protections put in place last year is a very dangerous move for the future of online communication. Consumers are at risk of having their information recorded with or without their knowledge and net neutrality could potentially come under fire. I believe it’s extremely irresponsible for the Trump administration to seize such privacies from the people and hopefully in the near future they’ll realize that the people have the right to decide whether or not they want their data collected by internet service providers.