EFF withdraws Verizon spyware claims – CNET (Mar 31, 2017)
This is an example of the hysteria we’re all being subjected to around the recent overturning of privacy rules regarding ISPs by the US Congress, and the dangerous places it can lead. The EFF, a consumer rights group particularly concerned with privacy, first wrote and then essentially entirely withdrew a post hyperventilating about a new app Verizon is testing on one obscure smartphone, once it gave Verizon a chance to respond and it provided an entirely reasonable response. In and of itself, this story isn’t that important, but it is symptomatic of a lot of the overblown rhetoric we’ve seen in the past week about carriers selling browser histories. The reality is that, because the new rules never actually went into effect, this week’s congressional action changed absolutely nothing from the status quo. And carriers no more have any intention of literally selling anyone’s browser history than Google or anyone else does – what they may do is use your browsing history to target advertising or their own products, just as Google, Facebook, and many other entities already do. Reasonable people can disagree on whether that’s a good thing or not, but it’s a fact of life for all of us already if we use these services. To pretend that what’s happened this week is the beginning of what EFF calls the privacy apocalypse is a total disservice to everyone involved, a form of crying wolf which is likely to make it much harder to get real attention onto real issues in the future.
via CNET (EFF’s withdrawn post here)
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