Broadband Industry Aims To Use Facebook Fracas To Saddle Silicon Valley With Crappy New Laws

from the we-own-the-pen dept

For years now, the nation's broadband industry has clung to one, consistent message: anti-competitive giants like Comcast are innocent, ultra-innovative daisies, and Silicon Valley companies are a terrible, terrible menace. From Ajit Pai's bizarre attacks on Netflix to an endless wave of ISP-payrolled consultants falsely accusing Google of stealing bandwidth, major ISPs have long made it clear they see Silicon Valley not as a collaborator, but as a mortal enemy. Given ISPs routinely try to use their last-mile monopolies to harm disruptive new services with arbitrary barriers and higher, extortion-esque costs, the feeling is generally mutual.

As companies like Comcast NBC Universal and AT&T (and soon Time Warner) grow and push into the internet ad industry, the ISP lobbying message has been consistent: more regulation for Silicon Valley, and virtually no regulation for the broadband industry. Given many of these ISPs are growing natural monopolies, the rules governing them have been (and should be) notably different, and sometimes stronger. After all, however bad Facebook is, you can choose not to use them, whereas if you're like more than half of America, Comcast is your only option if you're looking for real broadband.

Needless to say, the entire (justified) Facebook and Cambridge Analytica fracas has given ISP lobbyists a wonderful new opportunity to push for bad legislation they'll likely be writing. Former FCC boss turned top cable lobbyist Mike Powell has been beating the "regulate Silicon Valley" drumbeat for several weeks now, blaming rising social media "mindshare" for all manner of evils. And I've noticed the arrival of several new astroturf groups calling for regulation of Facebook and Google that are tied to co-opted "minority" organizations with a history of helping AT&T covertly lobby.

With Zuckerberg headed to a hearing this week, the broadband industry has ramped up its tap dance. This blog post by USTelecom, an AT&T backed lobbying organization, proclaims that we should look to the same industry that gave us zombie cookies for examples of exemplary behavior moving forward:

"And, in the search for privacy best practices, Congress need look no further than America’s broadband providers. For over twenty years, internet service providers (ISPs) have protected their consumers’ data with strong pro-consumer policies. ISPs know the success of any digital business depends on earning their customers’ trust on privacy."

From charging users more for privacy to using credit data to provide customers even worse customer service, the broadband industry has been a privacy circus for decades, making this USTelecom's apparent attempt at comedy.

Charter CEO Tom Rutledge this week also joined the festivities by penning a new blog entry proclaiming that Charter really, really wants a new, comprehensive privacy law:

"Tomorrow, Congress will begin important hearings to examine who is collecting what, how that data is shared and sold, and how best to protect and secure personal data when much of our lives are increasingly taking place online. As a company with over 95,000 employees that has the privilege of providing Internet service to 22.5 million homes across 41 states, we at Charter have an important stake in this conversation."

Keep in mind, Charter was one of several major ISPs that lobbied the GOP and Trump administration to kill modest broadband consumer privacy protections before they could take effect last year. Those rules, crafted after endless examples of bad ISP behavior, simply would have required that ISPs clearly disclose what data is being collected and sold. They also would have required that ISPs provide working opt-out tools, and (the biggest reason ISPs opposed the rules) they would have required that consumers opt in to the sharing of more sensitive data.

Yet mysteriously here is Charter, now calling for the creation of new privacy regulations:

"Charter believes individuals deserve to know that no matter where they go online or how they interact with online services, they will have the same protections. Different policies leading to inconsistent protections sow confusion and erode consumer confidence in their interactions online, threatening the Internet’s future as an engine of economic growth. And as an Internet Service Provider, that’s bad for business. So we are urging Congress to pass a uniform law that provides greater privacy and data security protections and applies the same standard to everybody in the Internet ecosystem, including us."

Again, Charter knows it has enough political power right now under the Trump administration and GOP that it will likely be one of the companies that gets to write whatever new privacy legislation gets proposed. And given Charter and Comcast's history, you can be pretty damn sure their version of a "uniform law" likely includes massive loopholes for ISPs, while hamstringing many of the companies large ISPs plan to compete with in the video ad wars to come.

Meanwhile, the rhetoric about "applying the same standards" to everybody in the chain again hopes to confuse folks that don't understand that natural monopolies may need tougher consumer protections (which is what net neutrality was all about). It's much like the calls on some fronts for things like "search neutrality" by people that usually have no earthly understanding of what net neutrality's actually about: protecting consumers from last mile monopoly harms.

As we've been noting, the broadband industry has been attempting to neuter FCC authority over ISPs, then shovel any remaining authority to an FTC that's ill-equipped to handle it. Applauding the FTC as the exclusive handler of telecom privacy concerns actually weakens oversight of telecom monopolies, (especially given AT&T is trying to gut all FTC oversight over ISPs entirely).

Of course Google and Facebook are not innocent victims here either, and they don't want tough, meaningful privacy protections any more than the telecom industry does.

In fact, AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Charter have recenty put aside some of their animosity to work hand in hand with Google and Facebook to scuttle meaningful privacy rules in California. This entire call for "privacy legislation" may serve multiple functions for ISPs: put a bullet in any efforts to restore tougher and more meaningful FCC authority over ISPs, while working with Facebook and Google on privacy legislation that simply doesn't do much, but does pre-empt the possibility for tougher federal or state protections. Knowing ISPs well, they'll also try to sneak in language that harms their newfound "allies" at the last second.

Giving how corrupt this current Congress is, there's a universe of ways this well-intentioned effort for new meaningful privacy guidelines could go south with genuine consumer privacy being a distant afterthought. There's certainly a case to be made for tough new privacy protections in the wake of IOT dysfunction and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. But it should probably go without saying that we don't want Comcast lawyers (or Facebook and Google lobbyists) writing them.

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Filed Under: broadband, mark zuckerberg

Companies: cambridge analytica, facebook