US fines telcos $200M for sharing customer location data without consent

The FCC announced roughly $200 million in fines against AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint for allegedly selling customers’ real-time location data to third-party aggregators without proper consent, fueling a gray market revealed by prior media investigations. All four carriers dispute the findings and plan to appeal, arguing the programs were discontinued years ago and were intended to support services such as roadside assistance and medical alerts.