The Washington Post reports:
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 Monday, a top Washington trade group whose members include Comcast, Charter and Cox argued that the rules should be thrown out.
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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.
Information such as your Web browsing history, your geolocation logs and even the content of your emails offer service providers a rich source of potential advertising revenue. That data, along with your health and financial information, can also be sold to marketers and data brokers interested in building a profile of you as a consumer. The FCC's rules restricted Internet providers' ability to use and share this information, in what privacy advocates hailed as a historic victory.
The full article is here.
