There is a proposed federal law that would require ISPs to store logs about their customers for 18 months. Should you be concerned about this?
No.
Before I explain why, the people I feel most badly for are the ISPs themselves should the law pass; this is because the ISPs at present simply do not have the room – and I mean that literally – to store the internet activity logs of all their customers for a year-and-a-half. Many ISPs would need a whole new server facility bought and have a crew of new employees hired just to accommodate for all that data.
Who pays for all those new servers? You do, of course. If the law passes, don’t be surprised if your monthly bill for ISP service jumped up 10 bucks a month.
It is very easy for police administrations concerning this to say, "Holding data logs for a longer period of time is a great idea. Hurumph hurumph. Do it." But obviously they’re not taking into consideration who pays for it all.
Why shouldn’t you be concerned?
The last I knew, Hotmail kept your data on record for 18 months.
Gmail is well known never to delete anything – even if you mark mail as deleted or even if you close your account. Most Google/Gmail users are aware of this and accept it.
Yahoo! decided to slim down personal data retention to 90 days way back in 2008.
The point is that your email (unless Y! mail) has already had long data retention periods in effect for a good long time and no one seems to care. It’s old news.
The only thing I would be concerned about is if you have to pay extra for ISP service concerning all those new data-logging servers just because the Fed said it was a good idea to store data longer.
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This is yet one more way for the federal government to raise everyone’s cost of living. Under the 10th Amendment, this is not Constitutional. (It is not a power specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution) But then, since when do they abide by the Constitution and who is going to spend the money to fight it?
i have no idea what u said david but im with U So u tell em man
Why is it, whenever I read about these topics I think of the Iron Curtain era’s East Germany?
I don’t try to get political, I just remember a documentary about the intelligence operations that went on back in the GDR ( German Democratic Republic) in those dark days. Quite unnerving was it.