Oct 27 2021

FTC: ISPs are Spying on You. ISPs: Deal With It.

Category: Cyber surveillanceDISC @ 10:09 pm

Your internet service provider snoops on your browsing habits, records them and sells you—the product—to the highest bidder. So says the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in a new report.

Are you surprised? Did you really think your ISP has your best interests at heart? This is the same company that overcharges you for a slow, unreliable service. And it barely competes for your business, because there’s no alternative in your market.

Privacy is dead. In today’s SB Blogwatch, we mourn its passing.

Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. Not to mention: Animated postcards.

Ghost of Privacy

What’s the craic? Tonya Riley reports—“Internet providers fail to inform Americans about how they use sensitive data for advertising”:

Difficult for consumers to opt out”
Internet service providers fail to disclose to consumers how they use sensitive data, obscure privacy practices and make it difficult to opt-out of collection, according to … the Federal Trade Commission. [It] comes as the agency weighs pursuing a privacy rule-making process as Congress dithers on passing a federal privacy law.
…
The key takeaways offer a scathing view of the industry’s privacy practices as a whole. … Common collection practices across many of the ISPs included gathering data that wasn’t necessary to provide internet services, as well as using web browsing data to serve up specific advertisements. … Numerous ISPs also shared real-time location data with third parties, allowing third parties to garner sensitive details about an individual’s life, such as if they visit a rehab or where their children go to daycare.
…
Crucially, FTC staff found that ISPs made it both difficult for consumers to opt out of data collection [and] to find out what ISPs had collected on them. FTC Chair Lina Khan said that the report raised the need to consider “a new paradigm” when it comes to how consumers can consent to data collection.

Tags: FTC, ISPs are Spying on You, Spying