The House passed a resolution on Tuesday that would eliminate the Federal Communication Commission’s Internet privacy rules that were passed under the Obama administration.
The privacy rules required Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon to get permission from consumers before sharing browser history and other user information.
The resolution to kill that rule was introduced by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who argued on the House floor Tuesday that “the broadband privacy rules are unnecessary and are another example of big government overreach.”
She said ISPs already have a “financial incentive” to protect user data and that the rules create “uncertainty and confusion” that put consumer privacy in jeopardy.
Her argument carried the day, and the House passed it 215-205.
The resolution was created under the Congressional Review Act, a law that lets Congress block recently enacted rules if both the House and Senate pass a resolution opposing those rules. The Senate voted last week to kill the FCC rule, and today’s House vote will send the resolution to President Trump for his signature.
According to the author of the resolution, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., these rules were “economically harmful” resulting from the FCC’s overreach.
Flake said he wanted to put consumer privacy protection of the Internet back in control of the Federal Trade Commission, which he argued in a March 1 op-ed had a “successful sensitivity-based model of privacy regulation.”
“The FCC’s midnight regulation does nothing to protect consumer privacy. It is unnecessary, confusing and adds yet another innovation-stifling regulation to the Internet,” Flake said in a statement.
Democrats and consumer advocate groups argue the rules should not be overturned in order to protect privacy at risk of being sold by the big Internet service providers.
“This is about profit,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said before the vote. “We cannot allow Republicans to sell the dignity of the American people.”
“It’s hard to imagine there’s anyone in America, other than those with a direct profit interest in trading private information, who wants Comcast and the rest to have the right to systematically and pervasively invade our privacy,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, in a statement.
The remaining Democratic members of the FCC and FTC issued a joint statement Thursday to condemn the Senate vote last week, which they said would eliminate “the FCC’s widely-supported broadband privacy framework and eliminate the requirement that cable and broadband providers offer customers a choice before selling their sensitive, personal information.”
The rules were approved by the FCC by a party-line vote in October, when the agency was still led by Democratic Chairman Tom Wheeler.
Flake’s resolution was announced after conservative organizations and telecom trade groups sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, calling on Congress to use the CRA to put a stop to the “innovation-inhibiting regulation.”
The FCC, now under Republican Chairman Ajit Pai, has already moved to weaken the broadband privacy rules, voting to block implementation of rule’s provision regarding data security from going into effect.
