On April 3, President Donald Trump signed a bill repealing internet privacy laws that would have gone into effect in December, according to a April 3 Time article.

…none of his business.

Faith Mellenthin | Columnist

President Donald Trump’s repeal of the Federal Communications Commission’s privacy protection just proves he is focusing on issues of our country that are none of his business.

The regulations put into place by the Obama administration would have given companies access to users’ internet browsing history and location details only after specific consent. Now, it is guaranteed they can be monitored — and even sold — without user discretion, according to an April 4 Washington Post article.

Frankly, targeted advertising is not something many people are opposed to. When given the option, people will consent to share their information if it benefits them and shows products they are actually interested in.

The FCC was a way for users to protect their internet usage. If repealed, internet browsing and research could be used to bombard users with things they don’t actually want to see, and this will lead to a negative viewpoint on targeted advertising.

…a baffling move by Republicans.

Ian Tancun | Columnist

People who think internet service providers — Verizon Communications Inc., Comcast Corporation, AT&T Inc. — should be able to continue tracking and then selling information about what their customers browse online will be happy to know that President Donald Trump just made that possible by signing a bill repealing online privacy protections.

Those protections, put in place by former President Barack Obama, would have required providers to get customers’ approval before selling any of their browsing habits to advertisers, according to an April 3 Time article.

Last week, Congress — thanks to the Republican majority of 215-205 — passed the bill that takes control away from consumers and gives it to these multi-billiondollar companies.

The bill was signed by President Trump on Monday, a signature that Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer had asked the president not to make, according to an April 2 Washington Post article.

This all boils down to one simple fact: consumers, not politicians, should be the only ones deciding whether our personal information should be collected and whether that information should be sold.

Given the opportunity to make that decision for myself, there is no way I’d approve Comcast selling my browsing history to advertisers or other companies. It’s not so much the collecting of my browsing history that bothers me, although that is a massive invasion of privacy; it’s more about them using that information to make a profit. For a party that is historically opposed to government intrusion in the lives of its citizens, Republicans have an interesting way of cherry-picking when to actually enforce that core belief—the fact that Republicans supported this bill is a prime example of that.

…a victory for big-name corporations.

Nick Bosshart | Managing Editor

Although the rules had not yet gone into effect, President Donald Trump signed a bill to strike down an internet privacy bill that was passed by Congress in October introduced by former President Barack Obama.

Obama’s original bill, which gave consumers discretion as to what data ISPs could collect from them, was officially abolished when Trump signed the repeal Monday.

Republicans in Congress were able to pass the new bill and get it to Trump’s desk without Democrat support, according to an April 3 CNBC article. Republicans contested that the Federal Communications Commission’s regulation put too much governmental control on internet service providers.

The win for telecommunication companies — such as AT&T Inc., Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. — allows them to continue selling consumers’ browsing histories to advertisers to personalize advertisements, according to a March 28 Recode article.

The internet is a world of its own, and a world without regulation leads to chaos. Trump’s overturning of Obama’s bill will only encourage large corporations to continue preying on consumers in the digital universe and sets a possible Constitution-infringing precendent as far as privacy goes.