Comcast, AT&T and Verizon pose a greater surveillance risk than Facebook

Re:Comcast, AT&T and Verizon pose a greater surveillance ris... by jacquesm on Friday April 06, 2018 @02:32PM (#16775972)

> Opting out of ISP tracking costs money, when I'm already paying my ISP money.

All you will end up doing is giving someone else the same capability that your ISP has today. A VPN solves exactly nothing.

> Not for lack of trying

Yes, that's true they did try that. But then again, so did some registrars by hijacking domain names that were not in use. (And sometimes even when they were in use).

But end-to-end encryption took care of that in a pretty definitive manner.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Comcast, AT&T and Verizon pose a greater surveillance ris... by jogjayr on Saturday April 07, 2018 @04:17AM (#16779902)

> A VPN solves exactly nothing.

Maybe, maybe not. US ISPs operate as virtual monopolies in many markets - even if an ISP was tracking and monetizing online activity most customers don't have any recourse.

In contrast, the VPN market is extremely competitive; there are dozens, maybe hundreds of providers. Privacy is one of the differentiating factors between them. It would be extremely risky for a VPN provider to claim "no logs" but actually store logs - a single data breach, rogue employee, or whistleblower could end their business.

I'm not claiming VPNs are a desirable solution. The desirable solution is that ISPs don't track or otherwise monetize their customers' online activity.

[ Parent | on HN ]