Before anyone races in with a suggestion to use a VPN service, I STRONGLY suggest that you consider running your own self-hosted server instead. There is a great set of Ansible scripts to do just that right here:
Why? Most consumer ISPs are larger than data centre ISPs, if they're not the same company in a given region.
I know the hot new thing is to get zillions in VC funds to provide some half-assed free service, based on the idea that one day you'll have a heap of users who you can somehow milk for a profit, but once upon a time, tech companies made money by providing useful products and services that people were willing to pay for.
True, but the biggest ones among them definitely are (depending on your definition of "data whores/pimps", Apple might or might not be included here).
And of course the politicians passing this don't give a shit about the Silicon Valley culture or ideals; Republicans care about profits for corporations because that means more fat donations to them.
No offense, but that's the most ludicrous statement I read in a long time.
Silicon Valley is about money and power. Ideals, apart from "ideals" packed into cheesy marketing slogans, just don't play into that.
Before you scoff, please realize that legal restrictions are immensely heavy-handed, and very frequently abused or misappropriated. Regulations frequently accidentally overshoot their target, and they stay on the books for years. Discarding unnecessary regulations is not only good hygiene, but it may be critical to the development of some improvement or technology that the lawmakers had not conceived when the law was made.
It'd be nice if Congress was fast enough on its feet to recognize this as it was occurring and make the necessary adjustments, but it simply does not work that way; once something is law, it's very likely going to stay that way, untouched for decades or even centuries. Remember all the articles about the FBI attempting to invoke a statute from 1798 (yes, seventeen-ninety-eight, numbers not transposed) to compel the decryption of an iPhone?
For example, the CFAA passed long before the World Wide Web was a thing, but it's had an immense effect on the internet's development and continues to be misappropriated by large companies to harass small players and break their products before they get large enough to pose a threat. Another example is the Copyright Act, which, under current interpretation, considers RAM copies of copyrighted works as distinct copies eligible for protection. This means that you're potentially violating someone's copyright just by downloading their web site!
Combine these two statutes written for bygone times but very much in full effect today, and if you make the wrong person mad, you're looking at not only going bankrupt trying to figure out how to pay your legal bills, but also becoming a felon. Such was the case with Aaron Swartz, who was facing prosecution under these outdated regulations for downloading publicly-funded research papers from a paywalled database.
It should also be clarified that this repeal only removes one set of regulations, a set imposed by the FCC and that has only existed for the last couple of years. I'm not a lawyer, but somehow I doubt the issue is so simplistic that Comcast is going to open up "BuyYourNeighborsBrowsingHistory.com" any time soon. There are a variety of other laws that may apply to the legality of reselling such data, and surely these would require evaluation before the concept was greenlit. Furthermore, if Congress can be convinced that this is a bad idea, they need only to pass a new bill.
The core issue is that telecommunications services, including ISPs, are not what most people would consider a functioning free market, because 90%+ of the U.S. can not obtain comparable service from anyone besides the main telecommunication provider in their area. If they could, moving to an ISP that respected privacy without being compelled to do so by legal force would be a perfectly reasonable position to take.
The focus must be on getting our reps to solve the constrained telco market. Interestingly enough, that may also involve liberations to and/or removals of the FCC regulations around radio broadcasting, licensing, etc.
One humorous note: if we believe the most dramatic prophecies about the meaning of this repeal, the last season of South Park may be closer to real life than we think. A foreign company develops technology to uncover the complete internet history of every human and the real-world identity behind every anonymous or pseudonymous post and threatens to publicize these. Complete social breakdown ensues.
In order to justify their legal authority to issue this rule, the FCC used a reinterpretation of legal terms defined in a 1934 law.
Often times in DC, the fight is not really about the end goal, it's about the path that is taken to achieve that goal. Usually, when you see literally unbelievable claims and hyped-up rhetoric, it's a sign that the situation is probably a bit more complicated than those who are making those claims are letting on. (e.g., "Republicans want to sell your, and their own, incognito browsing history because all they care about is making more money for big corporations!"). As everyone knows by now (see: TRUMP, Donald. 2016.), it's much easier to sell scary straw men than nuanced policy details. It's also a convenient way to hide what is really going on behind the scenes:
Nearly every Republican Member and Senator believes that consumers should have these exact same privacy protections!
That's right: they agree with the goals of this regulation! Broadly, these lawmakers disagree with this federal agency taking liberty with the law, especially in the Eleventh Hour of an administration. (Can you really blame them? The FCC is justifying their authority to regulate online privacy by using a law written 55 years before the World Wide Web was even invented!)
For decades, the U.S. government agency responsible for protecting consumers (ISP users) through the regulation and enforcement of online privacy rules has been the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). (see Privacy Policies, Safe Harbor, etc.). This is within both their historical role and their statutory mandate. They are the "nation's consumer protection agency."
Nancy Pelosi had two options: she could call it the "GOP Measure to Eliminate Internet Privacy" and score some (admittedly really, really, really easy) political points – or, she could try to get into a nuanced inside-baseball debate over the roles and mandates of specific regulatory regimes, and no one would bat an eye.
Easy pick for her. But that doesn't make it the truth.
I don't know the motives for the votes on this and afaik most members haven't commented to explain themselves. There are some particularly libertarian-leaning Congresspeople, like Rand Paul, who would clearly support it out of principle. We assume that others also support it out of ideological sympathy, and that everyone else is trying to play nice with the party leaders by going along with it.
You are 100% correct that a great deal of these legal modifications are technicalities that are touted as disasters for political convenience.
Let's not forget that the Republicans did the same thing when they pretended that the sky was falling over net neutrality going into effect, claiming that Obama was trying to "take over" the internet. Whether one agrees or disagrees with net neutrality as a policy matter, those claims are absurd.
Political parties, and especially the parties not presently in power, are always going to be trudging this type of muck up. It's very tiring, from both sides.
* The Communications Act of 1934 was substantially updated in 1996. Even if it hadn't been, age alone doesn't make a law outdated.
* The FCC classified ISPs as "telecommunications services", same as now, until the mid-2000s.
* The Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the FCC had the authority to classify ISPs as either "telecommunications services" or "information services".[1]
* By 2010, ISPs had begun to violate the consumer protection guidelines the FCC laid out in 2005. The FCC responded with regulations, but ISPs challenged even the most basic provision: no outright blocking of lawful content.
* The DC Circuit ruled the FCC couldn't regulate "information services" that way but suggested the FCC could undo the reclassification.[2] So it did.
* ISPs sued over that too, but the DC Circuit upheld it.[3]
Is that the FCC reinterpreting a 1934 law or a court applying a 2005 precedent?
After that was settled, the Ninth Circuit ruled that the FTC had no authority to regulate common carriers.[4] The FCC published the regulations Congress just overturned two months after that.
I'll believe Republicans want the FTC to enforce these exact same privacy protections when they pass a bill giving it that authority.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cable_%26_Telecommuni...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._v....
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Telecom_Ass'n_v....
[4] https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/08/29/1...
As you are a paying customer it is not in Digital Ocean's interest to sell usage stats attached to real identities. This somehow is not the case for Comcast.
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/privacy-from-int...
Disclosure: I'm a customer but thankfully not a US-based customer (there are more and more reasons to NOT live in the US these days).
Edit: also https://blog.trailofbits.com/2016/12/12/meet-algo-the-vpn-th...
https://twitter.com/FiloSottile/status/808355117011521537
Worth noting. I guess no solution is flawless.