'A good thing': Sen. Jeff Flake defends blocking internet privacy rule

Sen. Jeff Flake is defending as "a good thing" his legislation that would block internet privacy protections approved under the Obama administration from ever going into effect.

If President Donald Trump signs it, as he is expected to do, telecommunications giants such as Cox Communications, Verizon, AT&T and Comcast can, without asking, keep tabs on consumers' Web-surfing and phone-app habits and peddle that information to advertisers and marketers.

The congressional action to snuff the rule, which Flake has called a "midnight regulation" because it was passed late in former President Barack Obama's second term, has caused a furor among privacy advocates and consumer watchdogs.

Thanks to Congress, "big internet providers will be given new powers to harvest your personal information in extraordinarily creepy ways," Ernesto Falcon, legislative counsel for the San Francisco-based digital-rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in a written statement. "They will watch your every action online and create highly personalized and sensitive profiles for the highest bidder. All without your consent."

Flake, R-Ariz., challenged the Federal Communications Commission's broadband privacy rule under the Congressional Review Act of 1996, which lets lawmakers stop regulations by expressing disapproval via a joint resolution. The Republican-controlled Senate on March 23 voted 50-48 to pass the Flake-sponsored resolution; the GOP-run House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 215-205 to do the same. The Trump White House has signaled the president will sign it.

Flake argues that online-privacy issues have traditionally been in the purview of the Federal Trade Commission and that Obama's FCC had no business intervening by reclassifying internet service providers, or ISPs, as common carriers under the Communications Act. He has characterized the FCC move as a power grab.

"It is a good thing," Flake told The Arizona Republic when asked about the move to nix the FCC rule. "What we need with the internet is uniform rules, and not to regulate part of the internet one way and another part of the internet another way, just based on who provides the data. It ought to be the data that provides the basis for regulation."

The FTC's "evidence-based, 'light touch' regulation has allowed the internet to innovate and give us some of the advances that we've gotten," he said.

Still, privacy advocates are coming down hard against Flake and his fellow Republicans who supported stopping the rule.

“It is extremely disappointing that Congress is sacrificing the privacy rights of Americans in the interest of protecting the profits of major internet companies including Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon," Neema Singh Guliani, the American Civil Liberties Union's legislative counsel, said in a statement.

Flake countered that claims of Congress gutting privacy protections are overblown because the FCC rule was never implemented. He also said some online customers like targeted advertising that reflects their interests and preferences.

"This rule, the one that we turned back, was proposed right before the election, and was stayed after the election, so it never went into effect," Flake said. "So those who are saying we knocked out privacy protections are just wrong. It's just not the case. After this bill is passed and is signed into law, the privacy protections won't be any different than they were before."

But the Consumer Federation of America said that the lack of competition between broadband ISPs leaves many privacy-minded customers with few options.

"It’s an unfair, take-it-or-leave-it situation," Susan Grant, the group's director of consumer protection and privacy, said in a statement posted on its website. "Some in the Congress have argued that the repeal of the broadband privacy rules will not leave Americans with less privacy protection than they have now, missing the point entirely — with few exceptions, Americans have no right to say 'don’t sell my data.' "

On Friday, several big ISPs pushed back on some of the claims, emphasizing their commitment to preserving privacy and highlighting opportunities for customers to opt-in or opt-out of data sharing.

"In view of all the misinformation and inaccurate statements that have been made in the last week, we want to make sure that our customers understand how strong our privacy protections really are," said Gerard Lewis, Comcast's senior vice president, deputy general counsel and chief privacy officer, in a statement. "So we will revise our privacy policy to make more clear and prominent that, contrary to the many inaccurate statements and reports, we do not sell our customers’ individual web browsing information to third parties and that we do not share sensitive information unless our customers have affirmatively opted in to allow that to occur."

Cox Communications reiterated that the company "does not collect the individual web browsing history of our customers and has no plans to do so" and also doesn't sell any "personally identifiable" data.

With the FCC rule stopped, Flake said Congress now can take up online-privacy regulations "in a way that's uniform and methodical and well thought-out."

"Because as we go along, privacy concerns are paramount here," Flake said. "We ought to make sure people are comfortable. ... What you want to do is regulate in a way that honors privacy but also honors consumer preferences."

Nowicki is The Republic's national political reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @dannowicki and on his official Facebook page.