"The possibilities are endless and chilling," Crockford says. "They're going to be creating profiles of people to which the subject of those profiles don't have access. The layer of secrecy and manipulation involved in these markets is really astounding, and they were given a huge gift by Congress because there's probably nothing more sensitive than the browsing data."
"What's particularly frustrating for ordinary people who have to pay lots of money every month for probably inadequate and spotty Internet service to a company that has a virtual regional monopoly, is now those companies are poised to make lots more money by selling our most sensitive information to anyone who wants to buy it," Crockford says.
She suspects that information to be accessed by entities like immigration agencies, and federal and state law enforcement, as well as credit agencies. "So we're paying for the Internet, then they're going to make money off our data, and then, to get back a modicum of privacy, we have to pay more money for a VPN."
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Additional recommended reading:
- Baffler: The Great Data Sale: Privacy under the spotlight
- Privacy SOS: House and Senate kill Obama-era FCC privacy rules; take action to defend your data
- The Verge: Losing the ISP privacy fight is only the beginning
- Ars Technica: The impossible task of creating a “Best VPNs” list today
- That One Privacy Site: Simple VPN Comparison Chart