A Decade Later, AT&T Pays A Pittance For Lying About Its Unlimited Data Plans

A Decade Later, AT&T Pays A Pittance For Lying About Its Unlimited Data Plans

5 years ago
Anonymous $xdcOWPpsb_

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191105/10164943327/decade-later-att-pays-pittance-lying-about-unlimited-data-plans.shtml

Back in 2014 the FTC sued AT&T for selling "unlimited" wireless data plans with very real and annoying limits. The lawsuit noted that starting in 2011, AT&T began selling "unlimited" plans that actually throttled upwards of 90 percent of your downstream speeds after using just two or three gigabytes of data. AT&T spent years trying to wiggle out of the lawsuit via a variety of legal gymnastics, including at one point trying to claim that the very same net neutrality and FCC Title II rules AT&T was trying to kill prevented the FTC from holding it accountable.

Nearly a decade after AT&T's molestation of the dictionary began, the company has finally agreed to a $60 million settlement with the FTC without actually admitting any wrongdoing. That $60 million, after lawyers get a cut, will be split among millions of customers who signed up for AT&T unlimited data plans before 2011. Moving forward, AT&T also has to clearly disclose any limits on its "unlimited data plans" in a conspicuous manner (read: not hidden via fine print or embedded in a hyperlinked asterisk).