Congress sent proposed legislation to President Trump on Tuesday that wipes away landmark online privacy protections, the first salvo in what is likely to become a significant reworking of the rules governing Internet access in an era of Republican dominance.

In a party-line vote, House Republicans freed Internet service providers such as Verizon, ATT and Comcast of protections approved just last year that had sought to limit what companies could do with information such as customer browsing habits, app usage history, location data and Social Security numbers. The rules also had required providers to strengthen safeguards for customer data against hackers and thieves.

The Senate has voted to nullify those measures, which were set to take effect at the end of this year. If Trump signs the legislation as expected, providers will be able to monitor their customers’ behavior online and, without their permission, use their personal and financial information to sell highly targeted ads — making them rivals to Google and Facebook in the $83 billion online advertising market.

The providers could also sell their users’ information directly to marketers, financial firms and other companies that mine personal data — all of whom could use the data without consumers’ consent. In addition, the Federal Communications Commission, which initially drafted the protections, would be forbidden from issuing similar rules in the future.

[Republicans voted to roll back landmark FCC privacy rules. Here’s what you need to know.]

Search engines and streaming-video sites already collect usage data on consumers. But consumer activists claim that Internet providers may know much more about a person’s activities because they can see all of the sites a customer visits.

And although consumers can easily abandon sites whose privacy practices they don’t agree with, it is far more difficult to choose a different Internet provider, the activists said. Many Americans have a choice of only one or two broadband companies in their area, according to federal statistics.

Advocates for tough privacy protections online called Tuesday’s vote “a tremendous setback for America.”

“Today’s vote means that Americans will never be safe online from having their most personal details stealthily scrutinized and sold to the highest bidder,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

Supporters of Tuesday’s repeal vote argued that the privacy regulations stifle innovation by forcing Internet providers to abide by unreasonably strict guidelines.

”[Consumer privacy] will be enhanced by removing the uncertainty and confusion these rules will create,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who chairs the House subcommittee that oversees the FCC.

Policy analysts said the deregulatory effort may be the first of several that could alter the future of the Internet. Although regulators under President Barack Obama had moved to limit the power of Internet providers — by restricting what they could do with customer information and curbing their ability to block websites or slow down certain types of content — momentum appears to be moving in the opposite direction.

For example, consumer advocates fear that Congress or the FCC’s new Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, may seek to roll back the agency’s rules on net neutrality — the policy that forbids Internet providers from blocking content they don’t like or charging websites a fee to reach consumers over faster Internet speeds. Industry analysts said Tuesday that the FCC is also poised to deregulate the $40-billion-a-year industry for data connections used by hospitals, universities and ATMs.

Tuesday’s vote is a sign that Internet providers will be treated more permissively at a time when conservatives control the executive and legislative branches. That could be a boon for companies such as Verizon and Comcast as they race to become online advertising giants.

Internet providers have historically made their money from selling access to the Web. But now these providers are looking to increase their revenue by tapping the vast troves of data their customers generate as they visit websites, watch videos, read information and download apps.

Industry backers say that allowing providers to use data-driven targeting could benefit consumers by leading to more relevant advertisements and innovative business models. ATT, for instance, used to offer Internet discounts to consumers in exchange for letting the company monitor their browsing history. With Tuesday’s vote, such programs could see a return, and be marketed as a way to access cheaper Internet — although consumer groups have criticized these plans as a way for providers to charge customers a premium for their privacy.

Tuesday’s vote took aim at FCC rules that were approved in October over strident Republican objections. At the time, the agency’s Democratic leadership argued that consumers deserved the same privacy protections governing legacy telephone service. As more Americans turn to the Internet to find jobs, do homework and seek education, the agency said, consumers needed new protections to keep pace with technology.

But industry advocates said the FCC’s rules defined privacy far too broadly. The industry favors the interpretation of another agency — the Federal Trade Commission — that does not consider browsing history or app usage data to be sensitive and protected.

But the FTC does not have the authority to punish Internet providers that violate its guidelines. That is because of a rule that leaves oversight of those companies to the FCC.

As a result, Tuesday’s vote may release Internet providers from the FCC’s privacy regulation, but the FTC would also be unable to enforce its own guidelines on the industry without new authority from Congress.

“One would hope — because consumers want their privacy protected — that they would be good actors, and they would ask permission and do these nice things,” said Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) in a House committee hearing Monday. “But there’s no law now that says they have to, and there’s no cop on the beat saying, ‘Hey, we caught you doing something.’ ”

Pai, the FCC chairman, called the legislation “appropriate” and blamed his Democratic predecessor for executive overreach. He also said that responsibility for regulating Internet providers should fall to the FTC.

“Moving forward, I want the American people to know that the FCC will work with the FTC to ensure that consumers’ online privacy is protected though a consistent and comprehensive framework,” Pai said. “The best way to achieve that result would be to return jurisdiction over broadband providers’ privacy practices to the FTC, with its decades of experience and expertise in this area.”

Pai has said that his agency could continue to bring lawsuits against firms that are alleged to have violated consumer privacy, even if the FCC privacy rules were to be repealed.

Read more:

Republicans just rolled back landmark FCC privacy rules. Here’s what you need to know.

The Senate just voted to undo landmark rules covering your Internet privacy

It’s begun: Internet providers are pushing to repeal Obama-era Internet privacy rules

The FCC just passed sweeping new rules to protect your online privacy

WASHINGTON — Jared Kushner has been a power player able to avoid much of the harsh scrutiny that comes with working in the White House. But this week he’s found that even the president’s son-in-law takes his turn in the spotlight.

In a matter of days, Kushner, a senior Trump adviser, drew headlines for leaving Washington for a ski vacation while a signature campaign promise fell apart. The White House then confirmed he had volunteered to be interviewed before the Senate intelligence committee about meetings with Russian officials. At the same time, the White House announced he’ll helm a new task force that some in the West Wing have suggested carries little real influence.

Kushner became the fourth Trump associate to get entangled in the Russia probe. North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the chairman of the intelligence committee, said Tuesday that Kushner would likely be under oath and would submit to a “private interview” about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials.

The news came as the White House announced Kushner would lead a new White House Office of American Innovation, a task force billed as a powerful assignment for Kushner. But the task force’s true power in the White House remained unclear, according to a half-dozen West Wing officials and Kushner associates who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The official White House line is that the group would have sweeping authority to modernize government, acting as strategic consultants who can draw from experiences in the private sector — and sometimes receive input from the president himself — to fulfill campaign promises like battling opioid addiction and transforming health care for veterans. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday that it would “apply the president’s ahead-of-schedule-and-under-budget mentality” to the government.

But others inside and outside the White House cast doubt on the task force’s significance and reach, suggesting it was a lower priority for the administration and pointing out that similar measures have been tried by previous presidents with middling success. The assignment revived lingering questions about whether Kushner had opted to focus his time on a project that would put him at some distance from some Trump’s more conservative and controversial policy overhauls.

The announcement came just days after Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, were photographed on the ski slopes of Aspen, Colorado, as the GOP health care deal began to unravel amid protests from conservative Republicans that it did not go far enough in replacing President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Kushner rushed back to Washington on Friday but it was too late to save the bill, which was scuttled hours later by House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Two people close to Kushner vehemently denied the president was upset at his son-in-law for being absent, saying Trump had given the trip his blessing. And a senior White House official insisted the timing of the task force announcement was planned weeks in advance.

Kushner, who has been at his father-in-law’s right hand since the campaign, has long been viewed as a first-among-equals among the disparate power centers competing for the president’s ear. Kushner, who routinely avoids interviews, draws power from his ability to access Trump at all hours, including the White House residence often off-limits to staffers.

His portfolio is robust: He has been deeply involved with presidential staffing and has played the role of shadow diplomat, advising on relations with the Middle East, Canada and Mexico. Though Kushner and Ivanka Trump have been spotted with some frequency on the Washington social circuit, the president’s son-in-law is routinely in the office early and leaves late, other than on Fridays when he observes the Sabbath.

While those close to Trump flatly state that Kushner, by virtue of marriage, is untouchable, this is a rare moment when he has been the center of the sort of political storm that has routinely swept up the likes of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, chief of staff Reince Priebus and senior counselor Kellyanne Conway. It points to a White House whose power matrix is constantly in flux.

Kushner has been closely allied with senior counselor Dina Powell and National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs executive and a registered Democrat. That group has, at times, been at odds with conservatives led by Bannon, who to this point has been the driving force behind the White House’s policy shop.

When Kushner officially joined the administration in January as a senior adviser, it was suggested that the real estate heir would draw upon the private sector to streamline and modernize government. His task force has been meeting since shortly after the inauguration and started talking to CEOs from various sectors about ways to make changes to entrenched federal programs.

“Jared is a visionary with an endless appetite for strategic, inventive solutions that will improve quality of life for all Americans,” said Hope Hicks, Trump’s longtime spokeswoman.

A list supplied by the White House of some of those who have met with Kushner reads like a who’s who of the American business world, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Tim Cook of Apple and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase. Kushner usually does more listening than talking in the meetings, largely avoiding ideological arguments while asking questions about efficiency and best practices, according to a person who has attended a gathering but is not authorized to discuss private conversations.

But the Trump team is hardly the first seeking to improve how the government operates. The Reagan administration tasked the Grace Commission in 1982 with uncovering wasteful spending and practices, while the Clinton administration sought its own reinvention of government in 1993 with what was initially called the National Performance Review. Previous commissions have not produced overwhelming results in changing the stubborn bureaucracy, casting some doubt on what Kushner’s team can accomplish.

Philip Joyce, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, said the domestic spending cuts in Trump’s budget blueprint suggest that this new committee would most likely focus more on shrinking the government than improving its performance.

Even then, any change would be unlikely to deliver significant budget savings compared to reforming entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

“It’s not the main thing we ought to be focusing on,” Joyce said. “It’s at the margins of the big issues facing the country, certainly in terms of the budget.”

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Lemire reported from New York. Additional reporting by Catherine Lucey.

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Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire and Boak at http://twitter.com/@JoshBoak

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British Prime Minister Theresa May will submit a letter triggering “Article 50” on Wednesday, kicking off the formal process for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.

Divorces can be messy — and drawn out. Anger, regret and coldhearted calculations can lead the two sides to an agreement that neither side wanted or expected. There is no precedent or guide for any country to leave the E.U., but these four factors will play a key role in the coming months:

1) The real negotiations begin … well, not quite yet

In the nine months since the June 2016 Brexit referendum, there has been a calm before the storm. Ironically, this period has seen Britain, often portrayed as the awkward member, often at odds with the E.U., as a quiet and constructive partner on day-to-day issues in Brussels.

[The U.K. has voted for Brexit. Here’s what happens next.]

Although there will be a quick formal E.U. acknowledgment of the letter triggering Article 50, we will have to wait after that until April 29, when a special European Council meeting of all the heads of government of the other 27 member states will discuss the guidelines for the process.

But two E.U. founding members, and arguably the two most important countries in the negotiations, face elections in the coming months. In France, the election of Marine Le Pen as president would change the entire calculus of negotiations, but this outcome looks unlikely at the moment. And we won’t know who will govern Germany until after the September elections — so the real negotiations won’t get going until fall 2017.

2) There will be negotiations over how to negotiate

There is no manual for how a country can exit the E.U. The now infamous Article 50 of the E.U. treaty offers little by way of a practical guide. There will need to be negotiations on how to conduct the negotiations.

There are thorny questions to resolve at, or near, the beginning. Money is a big issue — the U.K. has been a major financial contributor to E.U. Indeed, the anti-E.U. campaign bus last June produced a defining image of the referendum campaign, depicting £350 million ($434 million) a week of U.K. taxpayers’ money heading to E.U.

Who will cover the pensions of U.K. officials who have worked for the E.U.? Should the U.K. fulfill its commitments under the current E.U. budgetary arrangements? Is the U.K. entitled to walk away with some of the E.U.’s assets? Agreeing to a final Brexit price tag will be challenging — and probably involve tactical retreats and concessions on both sides.

A second big issue is the rights and status of E.U. nationals in the U.K. and U.K. nationals in the other 27 member states. Should these citizens be accorded the same rights and access to welfare benefits, among other privileges? Both sides are under pressure not to use the rights of these citizens as bargaining chips in the negotiations.

[Britain wants a sweetheart deal after Brexit. Fat chance Germany will give it one.]

A third hot topic is how much of the negotiations will focus on the U.K.’s future relationship with the E.U. Article 50 simply refers to the agreement on exit “taking account of the framework for future relationship with the Union.” Given the timescale involved, especially the need for any agreement to be ratified by the member states, it seems unlikely much more than an outline of a future framework deal will be agreed to by the time the Article 50 negotiations conclude in fall 2018.

3) We can expect turf wars and multilevel chess

Political scientists like to refer to two-level games, but the process of Brexit will be more akin to a game of multilevel chess.

The past few days have reminded May of the challenges she faces holding together another union: the United Kingdom. Scotland’s Parliament has backed First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s call for a new independence referendum.

[Scotland’s independence vote will complicate Brexit in some very interesting ways]

The Northern Ireland Assembly elections have led to a stalemate over the formation of a new administration in Belfast. Brexit only complicates the Northern Ireland imbroglio, as the Republic of Ireland is an E.U. member and shares a land border with Northern Ireland.

On the E.U. side, demands will likely be just as complex. The main institutions will want to exert as much influence as possible over the negotiations. The Commission and the Council will be central to any deal, but the consent of the European Parliament will be needed for any agreement to come into force.

The history of negotiations involving the E.U. is full of examples of states seeking to use the need to reach a deal as a means of extracting concessions. Although Article 50 only formally requires the support of a qualified majority of E.U. member states, on such a salient a step there will be a strong desire to have unanimity.

Central to the motivation on the E.U. side is the fear that Brexit might set a precedent. As Catherine de Vries argues in a forthcoming contribution to the JCMS Annual Review of the European Union, there is a desire among some on the E.U. side to “benchmark” exit from the E.U. as a distinctly unfavorable alternative for other member states.

 4) Brexit won’t be quite like integration into the E.U., in reverse

Leaving isn’t as simple as joining, but the E.U. accession process can offer some pointers. Studies of E.U. enlargement show that negotiations go to the wire — and agreement often is reached when states strike deals to grant temporary exclusions on sensitive issues, even after the summits were supposed to end. So this is what we might expect to see as the negotiations are due to conclude in fall 2018.

Disentangling a marriage that lasted four decades will be no easy task. The tougher and more complicated negotiations, however, concern not the act of leaving the E.U., but the U.K.’s future trading relationship with the E.U. Given that striking trade deals and getting them ratified is challenging at the best of times, especially given the E.U.’s complexity, a transitional package looks highly likely, with negotiations on a more comprehensive trade deal stretching out into the distance.

In the coming months and years, we should expect many meetings, threats, broken promises, reluctant concessions, the occasional slice of statesmanship and awkward partners on both sides.

Tim Haughton is associate professor in European politics and head of the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham.