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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: 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.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(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"