Telecom giants can finally stop caring about protecting your data

For a brief moment, the personal data you gave to Verizon, AT&T and Comcast was protected from their corporate whims. But last week, new Republican Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai suspended customer privacy protections put in place under the last FCC administration just last year.

The protections required internet service providers to get customer permission before they sold off customer data including emails and browser history. The regulations also forced companies to put basic protections in place to make sure hackers can't waltz in and steal information such as social security numbers.

The industry railed against what they said was rampant government oversight, and Pai, who used to work as a lawyer for Verizon, was more than happy to swing things back in favor of the corporations.

Not everyone is happy about this, of course. “After finally gaining basic privacy protections for broadband providers last year, it’s outrageous that Chairman Pai will now remove the simple rule that internet service providers must take reasonable data security measures to protect their customers’ information," said Chris Lewis, vice president at Public Knowledge, a public interest group with a focus on the open internet, in a statement following the suspension. "This is not a controversial requirement."

Though the privacy regulations have only been suspended, they're not likely to make a comeback under Pai. The new head of the FCC has made it clear this is just the beginning of cutbacks he'd like to make on regulations favored by consumer interest groups. In fact, one of Pai's main goals appears to be the destruction of net neutrality—the idea that everyone should have equal access to what's available on the internet.