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FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

docs.fcc.gov

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Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#61

Post by 38 »

sofixa wrote: post #36
jmward01 wrote: post #12

The core issue is transparency. I don't want to see a 'privacy policy', I want to see who a company has sold/given my information to and what limitations that sale has. The concept is simple. If you collect anything about me and allow some other entity access, you tell me about it/make it easy for me to see -and- block. Most of this abuse of personal data would go away if people knew it was going on.

> Most of this abuse of personal data would go away if people knew it was going on. GDPR proves this wrong. Most people click OK/accept even in front of relatively clear information (to be fair sometimes the options are "accept for you to be tracked and shared with 'our partners' or pay a subscription/fee", which is an easy choice for many.

This is misleading. The OK is almost universally made easier to click through dark patterns, with the "reject" being hidden or taking more clicks

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#62

Post by toomuchtodo »

sofixa wrote: post #40
ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #24

I used to work for a hedge fund that bought data for 125 million americans a month, all of their mobile phone pings. All sorts of deep learning algorithms analyze shopping, warehouse, and other foot traffic. People have no idea the level of understanding some private investors have. It goes far beyond anything you see in public numbers. Some of the smartest people on the planet, teasing out wild facts about daily hab…

> People have no idea the level of understanding some private investors have Is this to be able to analyse "the market" (how regular humans are consuming)?

Enough so that the Federal Reserve was (and potentially still is) consuming this data.

> Eric Swanson, an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine, said that early in the pandemic, when things were changing quickly, the Fed looked at online rent prices, anonymized cellphone location data and credit card transaction data.

https://www.marketplace.org/2024/03/20/the-fed-loves-a-data-...

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#63

Post by Vvector »

uptown wrote: post #9

Sprint - $12 million fine (In 2019, Sprint Corporation's revenue amounted to 33.6 billion U.S. dollars) T-Mobile – $80 million fine (T-Mobile US annual revenue for 2021 was $80.118B) AT&T - $57 million fine (AT&T revenue for the twelve months ending March 31, 2024 was $122.317B) Verizon - $47 million fine (Verizon annual revenue for 2023 was $133.974B)

Welcome to the new charge on my bill:

$2.00 FCC Fine Recovery Charge

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#64

Post by tacocataco »

basil-rash wrote: post #35
bluGill wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll be honest, a Republican president would never have give us this win. The announcement makes it clear that a republican president started the investigation and in turn had a clear contribution to this.

But if we don't have completely unfounded attempts at saying "my side good, other side bad!", what political discourse would remain?

If we did away with First Past The Post voting, we could have more then two sides. Then it could be "my side good, all other sides bad!"

Progress.

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#66

Post by cogman10 »

lIl-IIIl wrote: post #52
sumtechguy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

perhaps. but guess who gets to pay that fine? it sure will not be phone companies. it will be in your next bill.

They can't increase the prices without customers going to competitors. So it's still an incentive against paying fines.

These 4 companies are the market. Everyone else (Google Fi, Mint mobile, Boost) are all effectively reselling the product through a carrier agreement.

So, not really any competitors to go to when the entire industry colludes to violate privacy.

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#67

Post by idatum »

jmward01 wrote: post #12

The core issue is transparency. I don't want to see a 'privacy policy', I want to see who a company has sold/given my information to and what limitations that sale has. The concept is simple. If you collect anything about me and allow some other entity access, you tell me about it/make it easy for me to see -and- block. Most of this abuse of personal data would go away if people knew it was going on.

Everything should be opt-in. Burden should be on them, something like, "We want to share your data and if you agree here are the benefits to you."

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#68

Post by cogman10 »

38 wrote: post #61
sofixa wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of this abuse of personal data would go away if people knew it was going on. GDPR proves this wrong. Most people click OK/accept even in front of relatively clear information (to be fair sometimes the options are "accept for you to be tracked and shared with 'our partners' or pay a subscription/fee", which is an easy choice for many.

This is misleading. The OK is almost universally made easier to click through dark patterns, with the "reject" being hidden or taking more clicks

Yup. At least 2 clicks and you have to process what you are clicking to understand. I've seen more than a few sites where it's

"Ok" then "Customize" followed by a bunch of checkboxes to disable cookies while the "accept all button" is where typically "OK" would be and the "reject all" is often labeled something else that isn't clear.

This is also not often remembered on future visits so you end up doing this dance every time you visit that site.

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#69

Post by hocuspocus »

sofixa wrote: post #36
jmward01 wrote: post #12

The core issue is transparency. I don't want to see a 'privacy policy', I want to see who a company has sold/given my information to and what limitations that sale has. The concept is simple. If you collect anything about me and allow some other entity access, you tell me about it/make it easy for me to see -and- block. Most of this abuse of personal data would go away if people knew it was going on.

> Most of this abuse of personal data would go away if people knew it was going on. GDPR proves this wrong. Most people click OK/accept even in front of relatively clear information (to be fair sometimes the options are "accept for you to be tracked and shared with 'our partners' or pay a subscription/fee", which is an easy choice for many.

In this very case, the GDPR is scary enough that European carriers make sure to anonymize and aggregate analytics they sell to third parties. Even if you click OK, a data leak would be pretty harmless and wouldn't identify you personally.

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#70

Post by hypothesis »

mrandish wrote: post #53

> "sharing access to customers’ location information without consent..." I'm not seeing anything here preventing the carriers from just adding "sharing location data" to the EULA / privacy policy that no one reads and continuing on - now with "consent". Without a requirement to offer a separate opt-out, this just seems like a temporary road bump that changes nothing in the long run.

Does carrier even have to do anything when say your bank inserts consent language for location data into credit card application? They might or might not qualify that with “for fraud prevention and/or other purposes”. Same for insurance carriers…

I saw such clauses and I’m sure it was about pulling data from your phone carrier.

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