Nevada is looking to protect citizens’ internet privacy from both ISPs and big internet companies

Posted on May 13, 2017 by Caleb Chen
welcome to nevada

New legislation in Nevada will require internet service providers (ISPs) and commercial websites to inform customers on what private, sensitive information they collect and what third parties have access to it. The new bill (SB 538) was introduced last Thursday by Nevada’s Senate Majority leader Aaron Ford and cosponsored by Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson as an emergency request. Companies that fail to meet the new rules could be sued by Nevada’s attorney general. Ford and Frierson said in a joint statement announcing the bill:

“For generations, privacy has been an essential Nevada value and that should not change in the Internet age. This bill takes the simple step of requiring that consumers receive fair notice when their personal information is being collected. It’s important that Nevada’s privacy laws reflect the fact that we are all conducting more and more of our lives online.”

Nevada bets hard on internet privacy

Nevada’s proposed legislation goes one step further and addresses the disparities between privacy disclosure requirements for ISPs and telecoms like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and large internet companies such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook.

Now that the FCC’s internet privacy rules have been overturned by Congressional action, some states have stepped up in the vaccuum of consumer protections to provide internet privacy protections. In Washington privateinternetaccess.com/…/us-senate-votes-50-48-away-broadband-privacy-rules-let-isps-telecoms-sell-internet-history shington, for instance, the rules are being enforced at a city level in the Seattle and Tacoma regions. In Minnesota, legislation was considered that would have required proper disclosure by ISPs on a state level. Other states, like Montana, have added additional electronic privacy protections that protect phones from illegal search and seizure. In some states, like Massachusetts, the push for internet privacy actually has Republican support as well as Democratic support.

SB 538 in Nevada is interesting because it addresses both sides of the camp and applies the same internet privacy disclosure requirements to both internet providers and internet companies. It’s refreshing to see legislation proposed that clearly has the interests and inputs of customers present.

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2 Comments

  1. Phillip Wears

    Here’s the issue that I have with Pai’s argument over treating ISPs and internet companies the same; they’re not. I pay my ISP cold, hard Cash in order to access the internet. They’re taking my money. Now if they’re also taking my browsing history and selling it on the side while I still pay them, that’s messed up. That’s entirely unfair to me as a consumer if I’m not seeing the profits being passed onto me in the form of cheap internet.

    Whereas you then have Google. I don’t pay them a cent to use their sites. Absolutely nothing. So they sell my browsing history to advertisers to cover what I’m not paying for. You know what? I’m okay with that because I get it for free. And if Google started asking me to pony up cash every time I searched for something while still maintaining ads on their site? I’d tell them to fuck off and use a different search engine.

    It is nice Nevada is legally obligating ISP and net companies to show what they are collecting. Just so pissed our FCC chairman is so obviously in the pockets of big ISPs.

    7 years ago
    1. Caleb Chen

      I agree 100%.

      7 years ago