by Itunuoluwa Adebo

The House of Representatives voted Tuesday to repeal the Internet privacy protections that were approved by the Federal Communications Commission in the final days of the Obama administration. The White House said Tuesday it “strongly supports” the repeal.

The Senate voted along party lines to undo the rules last week. The resolution now goes to Trump’s desk. The rules would have required all Internet service providers to get user permission before collecting and sharing your data but had not yet gone into effect. Providers would also have been required to notify customers about the types of information collected and shared.

At a time when everything from smart-phones to refrigerators can be connected to the Internet the privacy rules were intended to give consumers some extra control over the personal data online.

Opponents of the privacy rules argued it would place an undue burden on broadband providers while leaving big Internet companies like Google free to collect user data without asking permission.

Rep Michael Burgess, a Republican, described the rules as “duplicative regulation” on the House floor and said the repeal would “level the playing field for an increasingly anti-competitive market.”

But rather than apply similar protections to more businesses, the Republican-controlled Congress voted to scrap the rules entirely.

Democrat Rep Anna Eshoo said “It totally wipes out privacy protections for consumers on the Internet”. “I don’t want anyone to take my information and sell it to someone and make a ton of money off of it just because they can get their mitts on it.”

Itunuoluwa