Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast, your source for policy, rants, and raves from Tech Freedom,

your Washington, D.C. advocate for the freedom to tinker and innovate. I'm Evan Swarthscharber,

your host. On today's show, Broadband Privacy. The FCC is set to issue new regulations on how

internet access providers collect

data on their customers. Joining me to discuss this is a man who doesn't keep anything private.

Tech Freedom President Baron, thank you for joining us. As if you had a choice.

Well, Baron, welcome back to the show after an entire week of you not being on the show. And I think

we had record ratings in your absence. What do you have to say about that? No doubt.

But you know what? Sometimes people need to eat their broccoli and I'm here to give them

lots of good legal detail that will bore them to tears, but be very helpful for understanding

the big fights in telecom and

privacy. So it's fair to say you are the broccoli of podcasts? Yes. Well, that's a great tagline for the

show. Listeners, I hope you enjoy that. So, Barron, it's not like broadband was invented yesterday.

I mean, why is the FCC issuing regulations on broadband

now? Yeah. So the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, has regulated broadband privacy as well as all

other forms of online privacy for 15 plus years. So the issue now has arisen only because the FCC in its rush to comply with

the president's demand for a stronger form of net neutrality after the 2014 midterm elections.

The FTC lost jurisdiction here over broadband providers.

As Commissioner Josh Wright, a friend of ours, former Tech Freedom Adjunct Fellow,

put it at the time as an FTC commissioner.

He said that the FCC had, quote, stolen the FTC's jurisdictional lunch money.

And that was pretty apt. And the issue legally is very simple. The Federal Trade Commission has authority over every company in America, essentially,

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