No, Your ISP Isnt Selling Your Browser History Like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc

It is hugely ironic that one of the top stories on social media last week was how people are up in arms about changes to the FCC rules that allows ISPs to use their own data to engage in marketing.  Just uh, like that very same social media company that breathlessly announced that same news.

See that little circle with the F in the middle that tracks how many likes facebook users have provided?  That is a browser history tracker.  Whether you like this article of not, if you are a member of facebook, that little blue circle automatically connects your PC to facebook to pass a cookie indicating that you have visited this website.  In fact, every single website that has a similar icon, whether its the thumbs-up like button or a share button, the same thing happens.  Your cookie info gets passed to facebook showing who you are (even if you are not logged in at the moment!) and the fact that you visited that page.  And if you then click the like button?  Thats just a little bit more information, now facebook can tailor ads to better target you.

Nobody ran out last week and deleted their facebook accounts because they track users website browsing history.  Same for Twitter.  And Google.  Hell, the Ask.com search bar that also tracks your online activity is more popular than ever, and that spyware suite is run in part by Chelsea Clinton.

All this rule change in the FCC did was to allow ISPs to level the playing field against these big social media sites.   Facebook and twitter provide their social media platforms for free in exchange for this tracking information. Wouldnt it be great if the price of your monthly internet bill went down a little bit in exchange for your ISP to use their own DNS logs to supplement their operating costs?