After a long year, the fight for digital privacy may come to a disappointing end. The final FCC net neutrality vote will take place on Dec. 14th.

The US is facing an extreme degeneration in digital privacy protections. As Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai claims to “Restore Internet Freedom”, the world has been protesting, marching the streets, spreading awareness, and doing anything they can to protect the Open Internet.

A vote on the proposal will take place on Dec. 14th. – a vote that’s expected to change the Internet as we know it.

About the Privacy Rules

In 2014, after the Snowden leaks, we witnessed one of the most successful pushes for Internet privacy. Citizen protests and grassroots organizations such as Restore the Fourth organized thousands of Internet users to stand up to the US government and fight for online security, privacy and net neutrality.

Why Are These Rules in Place?

Internet Service Providers (ISP) hold unlimited power over your personal information. They can track your every move online, know every website you visit, what hours you’re active on different sites, your exact location, and even what device you’re using.

And now, the FCC net neutrality repeal will uncap your ISPs potential to store and sell all of your information to advertisers (along with anyone else who’s willing to pay a pretty price for it).

The new rule would reclassify high-speed broadband as an “information service” rather than a “telecommunications service”. Why does this matter? The FCC is forbidden from regulating information services. Reclassifying gives them total control.

How Does Net Neutrality Keep Me Protected?

The net neutrality rules protect your digital privacy by requiring ISPs to:

Tell customers what they collect, how they use it and how they share it

Require permission to use and share sensitive information like financial and health information, Social Security numbers, web browsing, and application history

Allow customers to opt out from information collection with minimum effort

Take reasonable measures to keep customers’ data secure

Give customers timely notice of data breaches, and in the event of a larger breach, give notice to law enforcement officials

Of course, this wasn’t done without major push backs. Broadband ISPs like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint, were opposed to these restrictions, as they hindered their ability to make money off of users’ personal information. They’ve been lobbying Congress to repeal those rules and have even filed a petition with the FCC – all contributing to our current situation.

The Current Situation

The FCC released a final proposal to end net neutrality once and for all. What does this mean for American users? ISPs will be able to dictate your browsing speeds based on your data package, offering fast and slow lanes. They can block access to certain websites and prioritize their own content. For example, they can restrict access to competitors’ sites or other streaming services that offer content that distracts from their own.

We are not saying this to scare you. This is exactly what is outlined in their proposal, which you can find here.

A few pieces from their recent “Fact Sheet” include:

Their inability to deny the fact that the FCC net neutrality repeal will result in “fast lanes” and “slow lanes” on the Internet. How they will not restrict ISPs ability to block you from visiting the websites you want to visit. Their own rebuttal is that ISPs might not do this because the public will get upset. They can’t stop ISPs from charging you a premium for reaching certain online content. The FCC glosses over this saying it will not happen, although they are well aware that it’s 100% possible and absolutely likely.



You can read more about the worrisome implications of the FCC’s widely unsupported proposal, here.

At SaferVPN, we have provided further analysis on the issue at VPNRanks.

Discrediting Public Opinion

While people have been petitioning for over a decade to protect Internet users from unfair practices, it seems the FCC has found a way to discredit all public opinion.

Misleading Identities

While the FCC offered a platform for the public to submit their viewpoints, many of these submissions didn’t make the cut. Often, the comments contained false or misleading personal information, meaning people weren’t revealing their true identities.

Strange? We don’t really think so. The FCC submission form clearly states that all information submitted, including names and addresses, would be publicly available via the FCC site. It’s easy to imagine that some people might feel uncomfortable using their real names tied to their actual email addresses displayed clearly with their comments for the entire world to see…

Similar Phrasing

A huge majority of the comments had exact or similar phrasing, which researchers are associating with spam messages that don’t actually contribute to the public opinion. However, many of these duplicate comments could easily be a result of prefilled submission forms like the one below – which does not mean that these comments should be disregarded.

The Comments That Mattered Still Didn’t Matter.

One important piece of information is the fact that even the completely unique, personalized comments still seem to have no effect. The comments that opposed the repeal were a staggering 1.5 million while only 23,000 comments supported the dismantling of net neutrality.

Let’s say that again more clearly. That means 98.5% of unique net neutrality comments oppose Ajit Pai’s repeal of net neutrality.

What Does This Mean to the FCC?

Regardless of this clear favor for net neutrality, the FCC stated: “This demonstrates why a rulemaking proceeding is not a public opinion poll and why the FCC focuses on the quality not the quantity of the comments.”

Here’s more about the FCC disaster:



Good for Business? Probably Not.

More than 200 companies, including Airbnb, Reddit and Twitter, sent a letter to the FCC arguing that repealing net neutrality would hurt the US economy. The regulations would put small and medium-sized businesses at a disadvantage and significantly hinder startups from getting traction at all.

Monopolistic service providers such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon will gain enormous power. The end result? Fewer choices, higher prices and stagnating service.

Protection Via Tech Giants

Some are holding out hope that once neutrality rules are repealed, tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Netflix will regulate ISPs for us. As optimistic as this thought may be, it strays from the core issue. Net neutrality means that everyone on the Internet participates in a level playing field. That means everyone, established business or brand new to the web, is equally likely to gain Internet traffic and have the ability to create a popular site, product, or business.

Relying on tech giants is quite the opposite of what we need to happen. It’s highly unlikely that they care much about encouraging competition. This highlights what’s truly at stake with the FCC net neutrality repeal: thousands of small businesses (even small ISPs) will no longer stand a fighting chance.

New Privacy Risks Introduced Without Net Neutrality

Pai, the former Verizon lawyer, even halted a data security rule that would require ISPs to take “reasonable” steps to protect customer information from unauthorized use or access, making sure Internet providers aren’t at fault if your data is exposed.

Erasing Encryption – For Hackers Too

At the moment, ISPs only spy on the bits of transmitted information that isn’t encrypted (sites that start with just http, instead of https). They can also only see the domain page you’re on, but not the exact page and its details. To compensate for this lack of information, Internet providers have proposed “Explicit Trusted Proxies”, which would allow them to intercept your data, remove the encryption, read the data and then re-encrypt it before sending it back out.

Unfortunately, this “re-encryption” process is not equally secure, increasing the risks of cyber attacks and enabling the possibility of a MiTM [Man-in-The-Middle] attack. A recent study has found that 54% of intercepted connections that were decrypted and then re-encrypted resulted in weaker encryption and therefore, security.

If ISPs start utilizing these systems, there’s no telling what kind of security measures will be taken, opening up the possibility of exposing anything from emails to sensitive personal information to hackers.

Pre-Installing Software, or Spyware, on Your Phone

As out there as this might sound, it’s been done – mostly on mobile phones. When purchasing a phone from your service provider, many have been found to have installed spyware, such as Carrier IQ.

This gives your ISP the ability to see everything you do on your phone – that is, every keystroke, text message, content, and all kinds of other very sensitive information being transmitted to your device. This allows hackers to access your personal information without even having to exert themselves. Scary!

Zombie Supercookies – Undetectable Tracking Cookies in Your HTTP Traffic

In 2014, Verizon Wireless inserted supercookies into all of its mobile customers’ traffic. There wasn’t even a way for them to turn off the feature, meaning there was nothing you could do to stop it: not Incognito mode, Private Browsing mode, or anything else. This means every website and third-party embedded in websites you visit can all track you.

The new regulation rollback will reopen this invasive, undetectable tool from ISPs.

Apparently, Twitter’s to Blame

Pai has astounded the world with his hard stance against protecting digital privacy – but shifting the blame to Twitter was comically unexpected.

Pai has insisted that “When it comes to an open Internet, Twitter is part of the problem,” he explained. “The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to discriminate.”

It’s an interesting position… Regulating the Internet is not discriminatory, but somehow Twitter’s open platform is…

Protect Your Digital Privacy Using A VPN

While there’s not much left for us to do but see what happens on December 14th, there is a step you can proactively take to protect your digital privacy: use a VPN. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) lets you change your IP address and sends your information through an encrypted tunnel, allowing you to browse anonymously and mask your online activities.

If the FCC continues to ignore public interest, the world is preparing to take the matter to the courts. The fight for net neutrality and your digital privacy isn’t over just yet.

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