FCC to Propose Fining AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile $200M for Sharing Customer Location Data
The United States Federal Communication Commission is expected to propose fining AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint $200 million in total for improperly disclosing real-time customer location data, reports Reuters.
Proposed fines for the four major carriers in the United States could be announced as soon as tomorrow, and the carriers would have the chance to challenge the fines before they become final. The precise amount each company is fined could change, and could possibly increase.
The FCC in January confirmed that several wireless carriers in the U.S. violated federal law by failing to protect sensitive customer data that included real-time location information.
Carrier location selling practices were uncovered last year when Motherboard reported that Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile had been selling subscriber geolocation data to third-party companies like LocationSmart and Zumigo, with those companies passing the data along to bounty hunters, bail bondsmen, and more.
The FCC launched an investigation into the practices after the U.S. Committee on Energy and Commerce in November 2019 accused the FCC of "failing in its duty to to enforce the laws Congress passed to protect consumers' privacy."
Popular Stories
T-Mobile will charge customers $5 per month to use iPhone Handoff, an e-SIM feature that allows the same phone number to be used on two separate iPhones.
iPhone Handoff requires carrier support, and at launch, only T-Mobile users in the U.S. and Deutsche Telekom users in Germany will be able to use it.
T-Mobile says customers can use their number across two compatible iPhone models and...
A series of screenshots seemingly show Verizon's AI chat assistant answering detailed questions about the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, just hours before Apple's announcement event.
The screenshots were shared privately with MacRumors by an X user who says the responses came from the "Ask Verizon" AI assistant built into the carrier's app. The conversation is timestamped September 8...
Update 10:04 a.m.: iOS 27 is rolling out now, though it may take a bit for all users to see it, so keep checking!
Apple is about to release iOS 27, which will finally deliver more advanced Siri AI capabilities as well as a variety of other refinements, improvements, and new features to iPhones. It's Apple's biggest software update of the year, and Apple announced at Wednesday's iPhone event...
