Trump move to kill privacy rules opposed by 72% of Republicans, survey says

Although the move to eliminate Web browsing privacy rules was pushed through Congress by Republican lawmakers over the objections of Democrats, a new poll found that equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats approve of the rules and wanted them to be preserved.

President Donald Trump yesterday signed the repeal of online privacy rules that would have limited the ability of ISPs to share or sell customers' browsing history for advertising purposes, confirming action taken by the Senate and House. This was very much a partisan issue among elected officials. In a 50-48 vote, every Republican senator voted to kill privacy rules and every Democratic senator voted to preserve them. The House vote was 215-205, with 15 Republicans breaking ranks in order to support the privacy rules.

But ordinary Americans aren't split on the issue, according to a Huffington Post/YouGov survey that found 72 percent of Republicans and 72 percent of Democrats opposed the rollback.

"[E]ven identifying the bill as a GOP proposal isn’t enough to win it intra-party support," Huffington Post wrote. "Told that Republicans in Congress passed a bill to overturn the regulations that would ban the sharing of customers’ information, 72 percent of both Republicans and Democrats say the privacy rules should go into effect, with just 15 percent in each party believing the rules should be overturned." The rest answered, "not sure."

Full results are available here. The poll question asked, "Last year, the federal government adopted a set of rules to ban telecom and cable companies from sharing customers’ personal information, including their Web browsing history, without their permission. A Republican bill passed by Congress would overturn those rules before they go into effect. Which describes your opinion?" The question was answered by 362 Democrats and 248 Republicans.

Support for privacy rules was even greater in response to an earlier question that did not mention the plan to kill the rules. When asked, "Do you think telecom and cable companies should or should not be allowed to share personal information about customers, such as their Web browsing history, without first getting customers’ permission?", 82 percent of Democrats and 84 percent of Republicans said ISPs should not be allowed to share such information without customers' prior consent.

Most aren’t aware of VPNs and Tor

Eighty percent of survey respondents reported being "somewhat" or "very" concerned about the privacy of personal information online. But most don't know much about privacy-protecting technologies. When asked if they'd ever used anonymous browsing technologies like proxy servers, Tor, or VPNs, 55 percent either were not sure or did not know what those technologies are. Sixty-three percent of Republicans weren't sure or didn't know what those technologies are, compared to 53 percent of Democrats.

YouGov polls are conducted differently from traditional telephone surveys. YouGov's panel of people who agreed to participate in online surveys "is itself not representative of the US population, but samples are drawn from that panel to match a random sample of respondents drawn from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey," the survey methodology says.

No poll is perfect, but YouGov has gained some recognition. The Economist has partnered with YouGov for years. FiveThirtyEight gives YouGov a "B" rating—the site's grades for other polls range from A+ to F.

Lawmakers and donations from lobbyists

On privacy, the Huffington Post/YouGov poll found large majorities supporting privacy rules regardless of age, gender, race, income, and geographical region, though there were differences within groups. But the people whose opinions really counted were Republican elected officials and ISPs who lobbied to kill the rules.

No Democratic lawmakers voted to repeal the privacy rules, even though elected officials from both major parties received plenty of financial donations from telecom companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. ISPs tend to spread their cash around to both parties in hopes of gaining favor throughout the government, but Republicans who voted to keep the privacy rules have not been rewarded as richly as Republicans who voted to eliminate them.

"On the House side, while there wasn’t a huge difference in overall funds received by lawmakers voting for or against the resolution, there was a gap in the Republican vote," the research group said. "GOP lawmakers who voted to quash the rule received an average of $138,000 from the industry over the course of their careers. The 15 Republicans voting nay? They got just $77,000." A difference of $37,566 to $21,395 was also observed when looking at these numbers for 2016 only. Three House Democrats who abstained from the vote received higher donations than Democrats on average, the analysis found.