How Lobbyists Needlessly Frightened Lawmakers Into Killing a Broadband Privacy Bill
Some days I weary of the sheer scale that politics have fictionalized policy. A policy based on fiction can only success in a fictional world. We have to live in the disrupted reality.
One of the two lobbyist documents released this week responded directly to the EFF’s arguments, comparing what the EFF called a “myth” to the “facts” as determined by lobbyists trying to kill the privacy bill.
For example, the EFF had called it a myth that the bill would inundate Internet users with pop-ups asking for permission to have their data used. Consumers would only have to consent to information sharing once, “not every time they use the Internet,” the EFF argued.
https://www.eff.org/files/2017/10/23/smfc067708170918085900_0.pdf
But according to lobbyists, “new requests for consent would be required for any use not specifically included in the initial request for consent. This would likely annoy consumers.”Falcon called this “the great, fake pop-up scare.” While the bill would have required getting customers’ permission before monetizing customers’ Internet usage history, “it did not mandate that people have to constantly receive pop-ups to obtain that consent,” Falcon wrote. “In fact, once you said no, they couldn’t keep asking you over and over again without violating this law and likely laws that regulate fraud and deceptive acts by businesses.”