FCC Fines Major U.S. Wireless Carriers for Selling Customer Location Data

The FCC fined AT&T (~$57M), Sprint ($12M), T-Mobile ($80M), and Verizon ($47M) nearly $200M total for illegally sharing customer location data with aggregators and third-party services without valid consent, following a multi-year investigation sparked by Sen. Ron Wyden. Findings show AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile resold access to dozens of third parties and continued the practice for hundreds of days after warnings, despite exposures like LocationSmart’s unsecured demo and reporting that location could be purchased for $300; the penalties, however, represent a small fraction of the carriers’ revenues.