Some recent moves by ISPs (mainly mobile but others would take advantage as well) want to remove the anonymity of web browsing for commercial purposes. A rule change under Obama would require an “opt in” action for user’s browsing and app use to be recorded and commercially monetized. Now, under Trump, proposals have been made to remove the “opt in” action.
“Web browsing and app usage history are not ‘sensitive information,'” CTIA said in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission yesterday. CTIA is the main lobbyist group representing mobile broadband providers such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile USA, and Sprint…..
The FCC defined Web browsing history and app usage history as sensitive information, along with other categories such as geo-location data, financial and health information, and the content of communications. If the rules are overturned, ISPs would be able to sell this kind of customer information to advertisers…..”
https:/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/isps-say-your-web-browsing-and-app-usage-history-isnt-se
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This article goes on and discusses the differences in responsibility of the FTC and FCC. We have all experienced geographic advertising targeting, or targeting based on cookie history but now, we will see advertising based on individual web histories.
Many years ago, among the more “cautious” of Internet users, there were anonymizing web proxies. Services that acted as a buffer between your computer and the websites you visited. They have in a large part been subsumed by TOR services. If the problem becomes serious, we all may be using TOR for common, instead of extraordinary, web usage.; both desktop and mobile.
In another trend toward removing the curtain between web user and TLAs/LEAs. A judge in a small city in Minnesota has issued a warrant to Google to find out who searched for an individual and their photo in connection to a less than 30,000.00 fraud case. Evidently the most sweeping non-national security warrant of its kind. If its successful, then due to the ubiquity of Google’s use, we can expect much much more of this.
https:/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/judge-oks-warrant-to-reveal-who-searched-a-fraud-victims
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