U.S. Carriers Facing $200M in Fines for Selling Customer Location Data

[Tozovac]

Was would be truly helpful (and be truly great reporting) are specific examples of how the companies’ behaviors were truly harmful and dangerous to an individual person and truly helpful to, say, law-enforcement for finding a dangerous criminal. Would some customers complaining the most also be a Instagramming and facebooking their location every six hours? One tends to wonder.

I would also like to see them fined for sticking to the awfully simplistic, uninspired flat design fad for this long, seeing those yawwwwwn boring icons. Which will be the first to return to interesting, inspired design, after which all the rest will eventually lemmingly follow?

 

[cmcbhi]

As expected, the United States Federal Communications Commission today proposed fines against the four major wireless carriers in the United States for improperly sharing and selling real-time customer location information without taking "reasonable measures" to protect against unauthorized access to the data.

In a statement [PDF] released today, the FCC says that T-Mobile should pay the most, while Sprint should pay the least. T-Mobile faces a proposed fine of more than $91 million, while the FCC wants AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint to pay over $51 million, $48 million, and $12 million in fines, respectively.

The fines vary based on the length of time that each carrier sold access to its customer location information without safeguards and the number of entities to which each carrier sold access.

Along with the proposed fines, the statement from the FCC admonishes the four carriers for disclosing customer location data without authorization to third-party entities.All four of the major U.S. carriers sold customer geolocation information to data aggregators like LocationSmart and Zumigo, with those companies then reselling the data to third-party location-based service providers. The data was ultimately provided to law enforcement officials, bounty hunters, bail bondsman, and more.

The FCC says that though exact practices varied, each carrier relied heavily on contract-based assurances that the location-based services providers they worked with would get consent from the customer before accessing the customer's location information, which did not happen.

Carriers had "several commonsense options to impose reasonable safeguards," but ultimately "failed to take the reasonable steps needed to protect customers from unreasonable risk of unauthorized disclosure."

The fines proposed by the FCC today are not final and each carrier will be provided with an opportunity to respond and provide evidence and legal arguments before final fines are imposed.

Article Link: U.S. Carriers Facing $200M in Fines for Selling Customer Location Data

Given that there are no arrest warrants posted and I'm not out on bail, why should I care?

 

[Morgenland]

Keep in mind that your location is tracked even if you have Location Services off or even if no carrier is enabled. It's still pinging the towers for no service. That's why Here maps works even with phones that don't have a carrier.

False pomposity. Here Maps gets the last cache location at the start. That's all.
But nevertheless: We must critically examine the upcoming tile system on Apple.

 

[nylonsteel]

when the decision gets finalized
those companies will just pass the costs to the customer
instead the companies should get paid or at least a rebate
the same ol story - customer always get it in the rear

 

[CTHarrryH]

Some want bigger fines so they go out of business - then how are you going to use your phone, etc. They will just earn the money back as happens in every lawsuit etc. Probably 25% of our iPhones are legal fees and judgements - People complain about CEO's salaries I'll bet they have lawyers who earn more.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Why is this not a $2B+ fine?

Too large of an impact on shareholders. But you knew that, right? It's about 'spanking' them for the base, not injuring the shareholder class. In the past, China has executed CEOs and management teams. Wasn't it Greenland that nationalized all the banks? Other countries do things so much better (?), but different.

 

[DoctorTech]

Verizon's gross profit (not revenue but PROFIT) in 2019 was $19.14 Billion so the proposed $48 million fine only amounts to 0.2% of their annual PROFIT. I think a more appropriate penalty would be to charge them $3,000 for every time they allowed a 3rd party access to customer location data. If those fines force them into bankruptcy, then whoever buys their towers and network equipment in the bankruptcy auction will think twice before selling customer data.

A $48 million dollar fine for a company the size of Verizon isn't even a slap on the wrist, it is more like a brief, disapproving look.

 

[RealRenderbox]

Why is this not a $2B+ fine?

Because the head of the FCC wants to say they did something without really doing anything.
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Highly effective lobbyists and the low moral standards of the Legislative Branch. Oh, and enough cash changing hands to ensure a lot more cash doesn't have to change hands.

No, this is purely on the Executive Branch as they have plenty of room to make it more appropriately punitive. Blame the head of the FCC.

 

[fairuz]

Since 2007 these carriers have been on notice says FCC? 13 years ago. The fines, $12-$91M are nothing to these companies. Tax write off. What a joke. CEO’s should be facing prison time if USA is serious about stopping this type company behavior.

They simply needed to fine the companies this much but in 2007 and a lot more for repeated offenses. Make it not worthwhile for them. We don't jail CEOs for publicly known company decisions, that's ridiculous.
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So many Americans always going on about how they want a small government and no limitations on the free market. But now that they see the consequences, they don’t understand why the fine is so low. Make up your mind!
Maybe strong laws to protect workers, the environment and consumers are not a bad thing after all.

Cell companies are monopolies in certain areas and oligopolies in others, so free market is out the window here.
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Was would be truly helpful (and be truly great reporting) are specific examples of how the companies’ behaviors were truly harmful and dangerous to an individual person and truly helpful to, say, law-enforcement for finding a dangerous criminal. Would some customers complaining the most also be a Instagramming and facebooking their location every six hours? One tends to wonder.

Hitmen

 

[I7guy]

....
I would also like to see them fined for sticking to the awfully simplistic, uninspired flat design fad for this long, seeing those yawwwwwn boring icons. Which will be the first to return to interesting, inspired design, after which all the rest will eventually lemmingly follow?

Discussing US cell carriers. This comment, in this context, makes no sense.

 

[boswald]

Even more proof that carriers and legislators don’t give a crap about us or our privacy. When will we get sick of this and do something about it?

 

[Tozovac]

Discussing US cell carriers. This comment, in this context, makes no sense.

This comment contains nothing relevant to this thread, unlike mine.

 

[I7guy]

This comment contains nothing relevant to this thread, unlike mine.

Just like this one? Maybe you can explain how the cell carriers control an interface. Edit: The word “fine” doesn’t make an not relevant comment relevant.

 

[1146331]

Should be multiple-billions of dollars in fines but instead we have incompetent ****s at the FTC.

Edit: I didn't know that **** is technically a bad word.

 

[tongxinshe]

What about FBI officials who initially forced these companies in doing so??

 

[stylinexpat]

That did not take so long lol..
As I had figured.

T-Mobile is preparing a price hike that (probably) has nothing to do with the Sprint merger

Three of T-Mobile's five Protection 360 monthly plans will get a small price increase in April, but although the timing is a little suspicious, Magenta says this change is totally unrelated to the Sprint merger.

www.phonearena.com