Sources: FCC proposes fining AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon at least $200M in total for improperly disclosing some real-time location data of users
The FCC has fined the big carriers before — AT&T's $100M unlimited-data penalty in 2015 and T-Mobile's $40M rural-calling fine in 2018 were single-company actions over billing and service conduct. This proposal is different: all four national carriers are named at once for selling access to where their customers physically are.
All four carriers face proposed penalties totaling at least $200M for sharing customers' real-time location with outside parties, with T-Mobile carrying the largest proposed share at $91M.
Each carrier must now defend its location-data practices before the FCC rather than treat location feeds as routine revenue from aggregators.
Second-order effects
Location-aggregator businesses built on reselling carrier data lose their lawful supply if the carriers cut the programs to avoid liability, collapsing a secondary market that depended on the carriers' pipes.
Carriers' compliance and legal costs rise across every product touching customer location, since the same disclosure practice is now a proven enforcement target rather than an industry norm.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds — proposal in 2020, finalized fines in 2024 — carrier location becomes consent-gated data enforced after a multi-year lag, meaning today's data-sharing arrangements get audited years down the line.
The FCC consolidates its role as the de facto privacy regulator for telecom data, extending a run of conduct-based fines into the data-rights space where no dedicated federal privacy law operates.
The trend: Mobile carriers' location data is shifting from a quietly monetized byproduct into a consent-gated liability, with the FCC enforcing the boundary one multi-year penalty cycle at a time.
Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T could be facing big fines for selling your location data
@jason_koebler
Jason Koebler on x
Reuters is reporting $200 million total fine across carriers, so the cost of being tracked everywhere you go & having that data sold to bounty hunters & landlords by corporations worth billions and billions of dollars is less than $1 per person https://www.vice.com/...
@ronwyden
Ron Wyden on x
If reports are true, then Ajit Pai has failed to protect consumers at every turn. This issue came to light after my office and dedicated journalists discovered how wireless carriers shared Americans' locations without consent. He investigated only after public pressure mounted. h…
@juliusgoat
A.R.R. Moxon on x
Our criminal fines leave room for hefty profits, which mean they're not fines, they're just a cut of the action. https://twitter.com/...
@sivavaid
Siva Vaidhyanathan on x
They made $200 million in the time it took to read this Tweet. https://twitter.com/...
@lam_barrett
Lindsey Barrett on x
I'm just a simple country privacy lawyer but it sure seems like if you fine giant conglomerates paltry amounts for flagrantly breaking the law and putting people's lives at risk, they have a pretty good reason to think that breaking the law will work out for ok for them next time…
@vice
@vice on x
BREAKING: The FCC says that AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon should pay hundreds of millions of dollars for selling their customers' location data without consent. https://www.vice.com/...
@lam_barrett
Lindsey Barrett on x
guys I am begging you PLEASE just stick to abusing one dangerous form of my personal information at a time, I ask so little https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@engadget
@engadget on x
FCC may fine carriers for failing to protect phone location data https://www.engadget.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@ramseymcgrory
Ramsey McGrory on x
Drip, drip, drip...In January the carriers were found to be illegally disclosing customers' location data to 3rd party. Now, they weren't safeguarding the location data to begin with. Oops, it's only the real time location of millions of subscribers. https://www.wsj.com/...
@hshaban
Hamza Shaban on x
WSJ: FCC Probe Finds Mobile Carriers Didn't Safeguard Customer Location Data “the companies can still argue they aren't liable or should pay less. It would ultimately fall on the U.S. Justice Department to collect any penalties.” https://www.wsj.com/...
@wsj
@wsj on x
The FCC found that top wireless carriers failed to safeguard customer-location data and is seeking fines, people familiar with the matter say https://www.wsj.com/...
@thekenyeung
Ken Yeung on x
AT&T and T-Mobile are among the companies facing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines after FCC probe finds that carriers didn't do enough to protect location data, though the carriers will likely fight decision https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ