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Comment by vancan1ty | Hacker News Reader

Something that is not mentioned in the article is that the FCC regulations in question were passed in October 2016 and have never gone in to effect. So, to be strictly accurate, the vote does not roll back any regulations which actually ever affected the internet.

Sources: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/03/02/fcc-sets-... http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/03/28/broadband...

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A few posters on the thread [1] for the Senate version's passing have noted [2][3][4] that this is the case, but those points appeared largely lost in the discussion to follow. To quote the comment at [2]:

"This undoes the 73-page publication published on 2016-12-02 by the FCC, most of which took effect 2017-01-03, some parts later on 2017-03-02, both after the election and one of them after the inauguration."

Meanwhile, [4] says:

"This pending rule change is not in effect at all yet; it was only put through 3 weeks after the 2016 election and wouldn't have taken effect until next December."

Not sure if it's [2] or [4] that's wrong about the dates of taking effect, but it's clear that the FCC rule was enacted very late.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13942345 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13943942 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13943458 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13944790

The actual rule[0] as recorded in the Federal Register says: "The notice and choice rules we adopt today will become effective the later of (1) PRA approval[1], or (2) twelve months after the Commission publishes a summary of the Order in the Federal Register[2]."

So, given that it was published on 2 December 2016[2], the earliest it could possibly have taken effect is December 2 or even 4 (December 2 is a Saturday)

[0] https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-16-148A1.p... (Item #312. Page 132 of 219 of the PDF. Yes, it's a huge file.)

[1] "PRA approval, as defined herein, is not complete until the Commission publishes notice of OMB approval in the Federal Register", so it was also conditional on approval by the Office of Management and Budget. AFAIK, that never happened, either.

[2] https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-12-02/pdf/2016-28006.p...

There's the actual Federal Register notes regarding the new policies [1]. Here it notes:

> DATES: Effective January 3, 2017, except for §§ 64.2003, 64.2004, 64.2006, and 64.2011(b)

The complete list of sections that are specified in the rule change (last couple of pages):

  64.2001 Basis and purpose.
  64.2002 Definitions.
  64.2003 Notice requirements for telecommunications carriers.
  64.2004 Customer approval.
  64.2005 Data security.
  64.2006 Data breach notification.
  64.2010 Business customer exemption for provision of telecommunications services other than BIAS.
  64.2011 BIAS offers conditioned on waiver of privacy rights.
  64.2012 Effect on State law.

64.2011 is further broken down; section (a) says (effectively) that you can't offer financial incentives for the customer to waive (b).

So it went into effect, but only the parts of it that were basically definitional in nature, and some places specifying where the regulations do not apply. So in a realistic sense, the regulations never went into effect.

[1] https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-12-02/pdf/2016-28006.p...

This bill rolls back the FCC rules. The problem is that it doesn't necessarily restore the FTC rules that had been in place for ISPs.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/congress-contemplating...

But what's also not mentioned is that AT&T and Verizon have already shown willingness to sell use browser data via supercookies http://techmeme.com/search/query?q=supercookies&wm=false, and the reason they backed off is because the FCC showed it had a spine. There is every reason to believe ISPs will begin these practices again because these rules have been lifted and Ajit Pai-led FCC is very different from Wheeler's... and there is very little reason for ISPs to fear losing consumer trust because of few local high speed options

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