A thin majority in the US House voted to repeal broadband privacy. They decided yesterday to give our personal information away. President Donald Trump now stands between you and your browsing privacy. The vote broke along party lines, with most Republicans voting yes, although 15 Republicans broke ranks to vote against the repeal. This is not a political problem but an ethical issue.

The repeal of these privacy standard is ridiculous. The internet’s promise is a information conduit that is free and fast, an information super-highway. It is a give-away to the extremely profitable telecom industry. Our supposedly populist President reportedly stands with the telecom corporations. Surprisingly, Google and Facebook do too believing that one’s browsing history and information should be for sale. Allowing corporate giants like AT&T, Comcast and others opt-out access to sell their customer’s privacy is bad for every internet user.

This may not be as bad as it sounds. US House voted to repeal broadband privacy! I don’t mean that it is not an invasion of what should be one’s private space. It is unethical. There are, however, action steps that you can take immediately.

1. Use a VPN connection if you have to go to sites that are insecure. The Electronic Frontier Foundation published a report last year saying 50% of internet traffic was now using the secure layer (https). Many sites have it implemented incorrectly. Be careful.
2. Only use a site that properly implements web security (https) Don’t visit sites that don’t have a certificate or have improperly configured theirs.Using HTTPS sets up an encrypted connection between you device and the site you visit. You can do that by using the EFF’s browser add-in that blocks unsecured content.
3. Spread the word that you care. The people you work and play with should know. My kids know and are careful. Make the internet a better place by spreading the word.

Since the US House voted to repeal broadband privacy

Step one can be tricky. At this time Tekmar is not recommending any of the hundreds of VPN apps that are on the market. We have been and continue to recommend that our fire-wall clients always use the VPN when working remotely. Step Two is a download at the link above. Unfortunate that there is not a IE or Safari extension, users of those tools, including myself have to make the decision to move away until they do. Step Three: Spreading the word is easy. More details at HTTPS provides the baseline of safety for web application users. Let’s make it happen

We will update this post in the near future as we get more details