After Congress voted to kill online privacy regulations that had yet to go into effect, information about the amount of money members of the House and Senate received from telecom companies started coming out.

After Congress voted to kill online privacy regulations that had yet to go into effect, information about the amount of money members of the House and Senate received from telecom companies started coming out.

On that list was U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-New Hartford, which caused an uproar among those who are afraid the vote opens the floodgates for internet providers, such as Charter and Verizon, to sell consumer browsing habits and other personal information to help expand their online ad businesses.

According to a list compiled by the National Institute on Money in State Politics, Tenney received $8,500 from the telecom industry in the last election cycle.

“I did not know that there were telecom companies giving me money until it was brought to my attention,” Tenney said. “I looked at the rule and thought about the freedom and the rights and what the actual policy is, and made a decision based on that. So I don’t even know which telecom companies gave me money. … I looked at the policy.”

Instead of being concerned about who gave her money, Tenney said she prefers to look at the information in front of her, research to find out whether she believes it would be good policy, and then vote on it from there.

This time around, she believes that reversing the regulation prevents government overreach in control of the internet.

“What the bill that we passed does is puts it all on equal footing and (makes) consistent privacy rules,” she said. “The FCC had re-classified different providers as Title 2, which makes them like telephone companies. It didn’t improve privacy at all; in fact, it took privacy protections away that the FTC already had and that’s something the FTC has done since the beginning of the internet. So this really was just an over-intrusion and what it is is a head toward government control of the internet and of content.”

While reversing this regulation, which would not have gone into effect until December, isn’t necessarily as bad as many have made it out to be, it is the first step to reversing net neutrality, which would be a big problem, said Sherry Lichtenberg, principal for telecommunications research and policy at the National Regulatory Research Institute.

“Nobody has control over the internet — the providers don’t have control over the internet,” Lichtenberg said. “It is true that if the net neutrality rules are pulled, that’s the next step of this — the first was privacy the next is neutrality — then your internet service provider could say, ‘I don’t want you to be able to access X website, ’cause I’d rather you access my website.’ That’s what the net neutrality rule wanted to protect us against.”

Members of Congress have asked telecom companies a handful of questions about how they operate under the current regulations and if they plan on changing that behavior now that the new rule is not going to go into effect. Verizon and Charter said they do not plan to sell browsing history.

Charter, which purchased Time Warner Cable and serves the Central New York area, said in a recent blog post the protection of consumer privacy is one of its most important responsibilities.

“Recent activity by Congress does not change, or weaken, Charter’s commitment to the protection of our customers’ online privacy, or our rigorous privacy practices and policies,” the post said. “To be clear, it also does not change the way in which Charter collects, uses or shares customer information.”

Verizon does not sell personal web browsing history, said a spokesman for the company. He said the company has “very strong privacy principles,” which includes choices for consumers in which they have the ability to opt-in or opt-out of certain programs.

“Consumers benefit and innovations flourish when there is one consistent consumer privacy framework that applies to all internet companies and users in the internet ecosystem,” said Karen Zacharia, Verizon chief privacy officer in statement following the vote. “That is what Congress voted for this week.”

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