T-Mobile Cares So Much About Consumer Privacy, It's Fighting The FCC's Flimsy Fine For Location Data Sharing

T-Mobile Cares So Much About Consumer Privacy, It's Fighting The FCC's Flimsy Fine For Location Data Sharing

4 years ago
Anonymous $9CO2RSACsf

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200303/10081244023/t-mobile-cares-so-much-about-consumer-privacy-fighting-fccs-flimsy-fine-location-data-sharing.shtml

T-Mobile, like many mobile carriers, insists in highly values consumer privacy. But that hasn't really been reflected in the company's response to ongoing SIM hijacking scandals. Nor was that dedication particularly apparent when T-Mobile (along with AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint) were all caught selling access to user location and 911 data to pretty much any nitwith with a nickel.

Last week, after a year of stonewalling, the Trump FCC announced it would be doling out some light wrist slaps to companies that were caught selling access to this data. For most of the companies, the fines they received were a tiny, tiny fraction of not only their annual revenues, but the billions made over the last decade selling access to this data to law enforcement, people pretending to be law enforcement, and even stalkers. All four of the companies also just received tens of billions on dollars from the Trump tax cuts in exchange for promises they completely flaked out on.

T-Mobile Cares So Much About Consumer Privacy, It's Fighting The FCC's Flimsy Fine For Location Data Sharing

Mar 4, 2020, 7:30pm UTC
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200303/10081244023/t-mobile-cares-so-much-about-consumer-privacy-fighting-fccs-flimsy-fine-location-data-sharing.shtml > T-Mobile, like many mobile carriers, insists in highly values consumer privacy. But that hasn't really been reflected in the company's response to ongoing SIM hijacking scandals. Nor was that dedication particularly apparent when T-Mobile (along with AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint) were all caught selling access to user location and 911 data to pretty much any nitwith with a nickel. > Last week, after a year of stonewalling, the Trump FCC announced it would be doling out some light wrist slaps to companies that were caught selling access to this data. For most of the companies, the fines they received were a tiny, tiny fraction of not only their annual revenues, but the billions made over the last decade selling access to this data to law enforcement, people pretending to be law enforcement, and even stalkers. All four of the companies also just received tens of billions on dollars from the Trump tax cuts in exchange for promises they completely flaked out on.