Hey Google, when all email providers sucked you fixed it with Gmail, you run a DNS at 8.8.8.8, and now -- now, I think you know what you need to do now :)

(I personally recommend you also do a web-based proxy, because who is going to filter https://www.google.com now or in the future?)

I believe in you. You can do it!

Counter this chilling effect today - and show more adwords as a result. (There is no irony in this statement. I mean from web sites that opt into adwords, not from selling VPN traffic logs.)

I'm pretty sure throwing our political weight behind corporations play-acting benevolence, instead of actual reform, is how we ended up here.

I'll take what I can get :) The damage is done and I think Google should help route around it.

Of course I agree with you that attacking the policy is also very important, but people still have to use the Internet every day. I'm not asking Google to do this as a policy statement - but as a practical matter. They can solve this problem for users by running a VPN for everyone and also web proxy via https://www.google.com which nobody could really filter.

This does not take away from the importance of attacking this policy.

Does Chrome's Data Saver (which at least routes HTTP requests around your ISP) count as a start?

from your description, sure. It just needs to do something bigger. :)

And hope the VPN isn't selling the data, also. Pretty bad news for everyone involved.

My ISP Comcast has the following in its privacy policy. I hope this clause stays the same - then you can opt out :)

--- The Cable Act authorizes Comcast as a cable operator to disclose limited personally identifiable information to others, such as charities, marketing organizations, or other businesses, for cable or non-cable “mailing list” or other purposes. From time to time we may disclose your name and address for these purposes. However, you have the right to prohibit or limit this kind of disclosure by contacting us by telephone at 1-800-XFINITY or by sending us a written request as described below under “How do I contact Comcast?” Any “mailing list” and related disclosures that we may make are limited by the Cable Act to disclosures of subscriber names and addresses where the disclosures do not reveal, directly or indirectly, (i) the extent of any viewing or other use by the subscriber of a cable service or other service provided by us; or (ii) the nature of any transaction made by the subscriber over our cable system.

I wouldn't be surprised to see this quickly changed to differentiate between cable and internet.

True.

But consider that many major ISPs supported this unpopular change. Why didn't they fear backlash? Well, outside large cities, there isn't much competition among ISPs. And even when there is, there may be no privacy-friendly options.

Conversely, VPN services compete on privacy and speed. VPN services that pwn users will likely get called out in communities like /r/VPNs. And there are resources like https://thatoneprivacysite.net/ that rate VPN services.

There isn't much competition among ISP's in large cities, either.

Do they carve by block/building?

VPN to a physical box in a colo. Pay for the colo under a business name that you own. This covers most of the bases.