Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday September 24 2019, @12:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the nip-it-in-the-bud dept.

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.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/09/att-tells-court-customers-cant-sue-over-sale-of-phone-location-data/

Personally, I think sale of said data is a serious invasion of privacy and hope AT&T gets hurt where it counts ($$,$$$,$$$,$$$).


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by hwertz on Tuesday September 24 2019, @05:41AM (2 children)

    by hwertz (8141) on Tuesday September 24 2019, @05:41AM (#897979)

    Throw the book at them! A company violated multiple federal laws, knowingly, and things they can force those calling them out for it into binding arbitration? Fuck that.

    "After 9/11/01 all the telcos were recruited by the US intel community to spy on everyone, everywhere"
    Actually, funny story about that (well not really funny). Qwest (who is now part of CenturyLink), when the feds came to them to ask to implement their illegal and unconstitutional spying program, the CEO of Qwest (Joseph Nacchio) REFUSED, pointing out his legal council advised him it could not possibly be legal, so they were not going to do it. So, what was the response? The feds cancelled some large contract they had with Qwest (greasy but whatever) then trumped up insider trading charges against the CEO, claiming the CEO somehow knew MONTHS ahead of time this contract would be cancelled, and sold stock then to make an extra $10,000. Yeah, a CEO making millions a year is going to insider trade to make 10 grand. Right. In court, he tried to bring up the whole illegal spying program, and with a straight face the feds claimed the info (INCLUDING New York Times articles and such) were classified. Yup, published newspaper articles are classified and so inadmissable in court. He got out of prison some time last year.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 2) by hwertz on Tuesday September 24 2019, @05:56AM

    by hwertz (8141) on Tuesday September 24 2019, @05:56AM (#897982)

    Two additions to this...
    First, to clarify, Qwest wasn't asked to implement this illegal program nationwide, this was the same "request" AT&T, Verizon, etc. got to install data-slurping equipment at their switching points that the CEO refused until he was removed and replaced.

    Second, based on info at the time, several telecoms other than Qwest went along with this illegal spying program, but reluctantly. AT&T, on the other hand, not only went along with it but told the feds about this great new (at the time) language "R" (used for statistical analysis) and provided assistance on how to use it to analyze the info the feds were illegally and unconstitutionally obtaining. AT&T is truly a despicable company.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @12:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24 2019, @12:45PM (#898077)

    God I miss Qwest.

    They were one of the few telecoms that actually treated their customers as people rather than revenue streams.

    Example: I know everyone hates calling customer service and getting a recording. Except Qwest got it right. My internet was down, so I called them on the cell phone, the immediate response was a recording, "This phone is associated with an account that is currently experiencing an internet outage, we expect to have things back up in about an hour. If this is not the reason for your call, please stay on the line." In less than 30s, I had exactly what I wanted, acknowledgement that they had an issue, and a estimate for when it will be fixed. Now with Century Link, I call, have to enter my account number, walk down a phone tree and get a person that will eventually tell me that it should be fixed in 3 hours. Then I call 5 hours later and get told 6 hours. Then 12... argggg...