TONY ROMM, RECODE REPORTER:

Sure and thanks for having me.

These privacy rules are about as good as dead. You know, you have to rewind the clock a bit to the last administration to understand how we got to where we are now. The FCC under chairman Tom Wheeler, an appointee from President Barack Obama, put in place rules the require Internet providers like Comcast and Verizon and AT&T to ask your permission, to ask customers permission before they share their personal information with third parties, advertisers included.

Democrats at the time felt that Internet service providers just had too great a look into your private life and could do myriad things with that information possibly against your will. But Republicans didn't like it. Republicans at the time voted against those rules. They found them burdensome. They felt the FCC was reaching far beyond its mandate under law.

And what we're seeing now is an evolution of that. Republicans on Capitol Hill voted as you said in the Senate, just last week, 50 to 48, largely along party lines, to gut those rules. The House is expected to vote this week and you can pretty much expect them to do te same as the Senate, setting us this up to head to the trash heap.