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AT&T is trying to force customers into arbitration in order to avoid a class-action complaint over the telecom's former practice of selling users' real-time location data.
[...] The class-action complaint [(pdf)] was filed in July against AT&T and two location data aggregators called LocationSmart and Zumigo. "AT&T used LocationSmart and Zumigo to manage the buying and selling of its customers' real-time location data," the lawsuit said. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages for customers, an injunction preventing AT&T from selling location data, and certification of a class including all AT&T wireless subscribers between 2011 and the present "whose carrier-level location data AT&T permitted or caused to be used or accessed by any third party without proper authorization."
The lawsuit says:
Despite vowing to its customers that it does not "sell [their] Personal Information to anyone for any purpose," AT&T has been selling its customers' real-time location data to credit agencies, bail bondsmen, and countless other third parties without the required customer consent and without any legal authority. AT&T's practice is an egregious and dangerous breach of Plaintiffs' and all AT&T customers' privacy, as well as a violation of state and federal law.
AT&T previously denied that selling phone location data was illegal, even though Section 222 of the Communications Act says phone companies may not use or disclose customer location information "without the express prior authorization of the customer." The lawsuit alleges that AT&T violated the Communications Act, the California Unfair Competition Law, the California Constitution's right to privacy, and the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act.
A series of reports by Motherboard beginning in January 2019 showed that T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T continued selling customers' real-time location data after all the major cellular carriers promised to stop doing so. The data "end[ed] up in the hands of bounty hunters and others not authorized to possess it, letting them track most phones in the country," Motherboard reported at the time. The news site also wrote about AT&T's motion to compel arbitration yesterday.
Personally, I think sale of said data is a serious invasion of privacy and hope AT&T gets hurt where it counts ($$,$$$,$$$,$$$).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 24 2019, @12:35AM (5 children)
After 9/11/01 all the telcos were recruited by the US intel community to spy on everyone, everywhere. All that immunity tossed around to them simply corrupted them to the core. Telco's today believe that they are ENTITLED to harvest and sell every bit of data they can get.
They all need to be hammered pretty severely. Telco's need to return to the status they had when AT&T and Ma Bell were a duopoly, and they clearly understood that interfering with customer's activities was VERBOTEN!! Eavesdropping or any kind should be punished severely. And "severely" doesn't mean a fifty dollar fine, or some such nonsense. A single act of unauthorized tracking should cost the telco about as much as a senior manager makes in a year. An established history of tracking an individual should cost them more than their top CEO's make in a year - including all those plush bonuses. It should hurt so bad to collect and sell data that no telco would even dream of doing so.
And, if they can't learn that simple lesson, then they need to be bankrupted and put out of business.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Tuesday September 24 2019, @09:04AM
Hmm, so cogent in comparison to many of your other posts.
I don't think we should see the 'duopoly' age as any sort of good ole days. Even then if the companies were spying the government would not be able to prove it and regulate it, I'm not even sure how this could be done from a technical standpoint. If I own the wires in the city and the huge processing complexes, I am quite certain I could find a way to copy traffic en bulk without anyone knowing unless idk some harry potter security government apparatus, and then all it would still take is one spy to walk off with a hard disk and disappear with a fortune.
I worked for a company that handled tier 1 support calls for small ISP's and I had to take 2 weeks of training classes with the senior staff who were actually pretty knowledgeable. One of the staff, who was kindof a soft spoken round guy with glasses, a family guy, not in any way some wingnut with an agenda, dropped this nugget one day in class and my jaw is still dropped:
"I had to train for several months after I was hired as a Verizon engineer, and I can promise you that every call in this country has been recorded since January 1, 1964.'
If it had been any other date, I might have called bullshit. But that is how they got away with killing John F. Kennedy, and any semblence of rights has been a joke played on a completely gaslit population since long before I was born. And now all that traffic and nsa data is shared with israel, who is clearly using it to establish domination, and sees the united states not as an ally but as a chump puppet. I know this is fourth hand, but if I had to I can confirm aspects of my story, I sure can.
That is also how they knew they could get away with the kennedy assassination, if any actual movement of people or information was about to come out that would hurt them, they would pick it up on the wires and that person wouldn't get very far. It makes so much more sense than thinking that they waited until 9/11, the day on which all of the evidence against the same peoples' other crimes was also destroyed.
So waiting for any of these companies and institutions to save us is not going to work, like usual. The companies are there to enforce power, not help us have any.
If we want any freedom, it is going to have to rely on our personal computers and personal encryption software, which is something we can actually work on rather than rallying for some or another board of directors to rescue us.
thesesystemsarefailing.net
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:11PM (2 children)
I don't know - a fifty dollar fine seems perfectly reasonable... as long as it's $50 per customer, per call. To be really nasty, I suppose you could apply incremental penalties for each subsequent infringement after the first one. Exactly how many phone calls have they handled since they started? The incremental penalties might be overkill.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:50PM (1 child)
Doing the research, in order to do the math, would be a killer.
Want to go one step nastier? Force AT&T to research how much money they made off of each customer's data, and REFUND to the customer all of that money. That would be sweeter than a class-action lawsuit, in which you might see $6.80 after the lawyers get their cuts. If AT&T profited by $1.50 off of your data, personally, they cut a check for $1.50 and mail it to you. If they made $17,000 off of your data, they cut a check for $17,000 and mail it to you. The research will be expensive if done right, cutting checks adds insult to injury, postal fees adds a bit more insult, and they are out all of their incentive for snooping on you.
All of that IN ADDITION TO fines, penalties, and various suits.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday September 25 2019, @06:24PM
Now, that seems much more like justice to me. Though, it would probably constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @02:48PM
"After 9/11/01 all the telcos were recruited by the US intel community to spy on everyone"
Actually if you read about the history of the NSA, the telco's were co-opted almost immediately after the very first trans-atlantic cable was laid. There has been a cozy relationship ever since. Worth noting that during wartime they usually play both sides against the middle since they are international companies co-opted by both of the warring states.
Certainly the arbitration clause should be thrown out. AT&T will just pass the expense on to its customers and probably just keep doing what it is doing. (just maybe hide it better) They have always sold your data to the intelligence agencies. Always have, always will. While this is a crime, they are usually better at concealing it. And that is how they will view it: "Damn, we better improve our security!, We got caught!"