At Least 8 States Update Privacy Laws in Wake of FCC Rule Repeal

In the wake of Congress making it brutaly clear last week that it works for AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, many states are rushing to fill the void when it comes to the elimination of broadband privacy protections. Minnesota has already passed a new law making it illegal for ISPs to sell user data with out express consumer consent. There's a laundry list of similar bills popping up across a wide variety of other states.

"Internet service providers have put themselves in a bit of a conundrum here," consumer group Public Knowledge says of the push. "They've bucked the federal rule, and they're going to get what they hate the most -- a bunch of state laws."

State laws may often make life more difficult for ISPs that then have to adjust their business practices to adapt to what are dramatically different rules. Of course, ISPs could have avoided this by accepting the FCC's uniform fairly modest privacy rules, which simply required they be transparent with what's being collected, and who it's being sold to.

Unlike the House and Senate votes to kill the privacy rules (which were along largely partisan lines despite broad bipartisan support), many of these state efforts are seeing bipartisan cooperation among lawmakers.

• In Washington state, lawmakers have introduced both SB 5919 and HB 2200, with the intent of folding internet-privacy protections into the state’s existing consumer-protection act.

• In Montana, the Montana Senate has approved a budget provision banning broadband providers from being awarded state contracts if they collect data from their customers without consent.

• In Wisconsin, DSLReports.com reader Stewy85 notes that the state has passed an amendment, limiting the collection and sale of personal data without a consumer's express written consent.

• In Illinois, the Illinois General Assembly is considering two different measures that take aim at the sale of geolocation data, and another measure aimed at making data collection and sales more transparent with consumers.

• In New York, Senator Tim Kennedy has introduced a new bill barring ISPs from collecting and selling your personal data without express consent.

Hawaii and California are considering similar measures that should be introduced shortly.

Given the absolute (and often downright comic) stranglehold over many state legislatures by companies like AT&T, you can expect many of these efforts to be killed quickly. And there's a laundry list of states where ISPs have such an immense stranglehold over state legislatures (looking at you, West Virginia, Missouri and Tennessee) your chance of seeing real privacy protections are about on par with your chance of being a lotto winner.

Lawmakers not well versed with technology may also over-reach, creating other unforeseen problems. Of course, none of this would be happening if Congress hadn't decided to kill what really were relatively modest and uniform privacy protections -- simply to keep large ISP campaign contributions flowing.

Meanwhile, backed by broad, bipartisan support among consumers, internet activists have begun trying to galvanize a movement they hope will result in the lawmakers that voted to repeal the FCC's privacy rules -- being forced to seek other employment after the 2018 and 2020 elections.