UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Federal Trade Commission

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20580

Office of Commissioner

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter

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REMARKS OF COMMISSIONER REBECCA KELLY SLAUGHTER REGARDING 

THE FTC STAFF REPORT – A LOOK AT WHAT ISPs KNOW ABOUT YOU: 

EXAMINING THE PRIVACY PRACTICES OF SIX MAJOR INTERNET SERVICE 

PROVIDERS1

As Prepared for Delivery

October 21, 2021

Thanks to you all for that presentation and to the whole team that worked on this report. 

It’s an important document that shows just how essential our investigative authority can be to 

uncovering prevalent industry practices. This report sheds light on the truly staggering amount of 

data collection and surveillance broadband internet service providers (ISPs) conduct on their 

customers. It points to the need for urgent action across agencies and in Congress to protect users 

of these ubiquitous and critical services. I think the report speaks well for itself, but I would like 

to highlight three quick takeaways that were the most important from my perspective.

First, the data uncovered in this report underscores the error of the last administration’s 

rescission of the Open Internet Order, more commonly called Net Neutrality. The FCC is our 

country’s expert telecommunications regulator; it should be able to investigate and regulate the 

practices of internet services providers, a critical part of telecommunications infrastructure. This 

report shows how, absent the FCC’s oversight, many ISPs participated in a race to the bottom to 

partake in the lucrative market of monetizing their customer’s personal information. I hope the 

FCC is able to return ISPs to their proper classification as telecom services under Title II and to 

provide appropriate protections for these essential services. 

Second, this report is a call to action for the FTC, too. The study uncovered massive 

overcollection and surveillance of Americans by their ISPs – practices that are common across 

the internet ecosystem. As we just heard, ISPs collect far more information on their 

customers than is necessary to provide them the service they pay for. They collect

information like browsing history, contents of email, search history, location data, and monetize 

it to make even more money off their customers in ways I doubt most of their subscribers 

understand or are ever aware of. The report also highlights the ways in which a notice-andchoice regime to control data collection and abuse is illusory, rendering it functionally 

ineffective.

Finally, the report illustrates some of the ways in which the harms and abuses that stem 

from the overcollection that fuels digital surveillance go beyond traditional privacy concerns. In 

fact, civil rights abuses, digital redlining, and further marginalization of Black and brown 

 1 The views expressed in these remarks are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Trade

Commission or any other commissioner.
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communities, the LGBTQ + community, can all stem from the compilation of this information 

and its sharing with unrelated businesses. Addressing these equity issues head on is a critical part 

of the FTC’s mission to make sure we have an economy that is fair and works for everyone. 

This report demonstrates a prevalence of unavoidable and unfair behavior across the 

internet economy. While it certainly supports better oversight of ISPs by the FCC through a 

revived Net Neutrality regime, I think it also shows the value of clear rules on data abuses,

including limits on collection and use, to protect people’s rights. I look forward to working with 

all my fellow commissioners to seeing that through.