https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/19/17479490/att-follows-verizon-user-location-data-sale-brokers

AT&T says it will end its practice of selling real-time user location data to third-party brokers after its primary competitor Verizon agreed to do the same earlier today. “Our top priority is to protect our customers’ information, and, to that end, we will be ending our work with aggregators for these services as soon as practical in a way that preserves important, potential lifesaving services like emergency roadside assistance,” reads a statement from an AT&T spokesperson given to The Verge.

Following pressure from lawmakers, specifically Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Verizon said this morning that it would end the controversial, industry-wide practice. This is after Wyden revealed that the brokers who purchased the data were not verifying if its users had legal permission to track cellphone users through its service. It was then providing that data to other companies, notably Securus Technologies, a company that mainly monitors phone calls to prison inmates. Securus, it turns out, also sells real-time location data to law enforcement agencies without checking the validity of warrants. A former sheriff in Missouri has now been accused of using that data for unlawful surveillance of a judge and other police officers.