People are plotting to get back at the politicians who voted to sell your web data
Republicans in the House of Representatives voted yesterday to allow internet service providers to sell your private data—like your web history—without your knowledge. Republicans in the Senate had done the same late last week, all but ensuring that privacy-boosting regulations implemented at the end of the Obama administration would never go into effect.
Now that protecting our web data is a distant dream, some folks figured it was only fair to return the favor to those politicians.
Two GoFundMe accounts were recently started to help their creators purchase the private internet history of Congress members.
The first was set up by Adam McElhaney, an engineer in Tennessee. As of this writing he'd raised around $60,000 of what was initially a $10,000 goal, though the goal on his website, searchinternethistory.com, now puts the goal at $1 million.
According to his site and the GoFundMe, McElhaney plans to buy internet history from "all legislators, congressmen, executives, and their families and make them easily searchable"—though he singles out the Republican legislators who advanced the legislation.
The other was set up by Misha Collins, who's raised more than $25,000 out of a $500 million goal. Collins' plan is to buy the internet history of everyone who voted in favor of internet service providers being able to sell consumer data. The GoFundMe assures contributors that the intent is not to release information that might put politicians in danger, and, should the fund not pull in enough money to "buy the data," donations will go to the ACLU.
Whether you believe that enough to donate is up to you.
Topics Senate
Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.
