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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

#111

Post by grobbyy »

idatum wrote: post #67
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."

I have mixed feelings about opt in. A single accidental click on a web site and GDPR has failed to protect the user. Dark patterns allow that to be gamed. And it complicates legitimate uses.

I'd like auditable data. I should have an easy way to discover everyone with my data (including things like IP logs), see how it's used (at the level of source), and have it destroyed.

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#113

Post by alwaysrunning »

It would take the combined daily revenue of T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon approximately 9 hours to generate $196 million in revenue.

To estimate the time it takes for T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon combined to generate $196 million in revenue, we need to calculate their combined daily revenue.

Let's assume the combined daily revenue of the three companies is:

T-Mobile: $45.5 million (as estimated earlier) AT&T: $125.6 million (as estimated earlier) Verizon: $349.3 million (as estimated earlier) Combined daily revenue: 45.5 million + 125.6 million + 349.3 million = 520.4 million

To generate $196 million in revenue, it would take the combined daily revenue of the three companies approximately:

520.4 million (combined daily revenue) ÷ 24 (hours in a day) = 21.6 million/hour. 196 million (fine amount) ÷ 21.6 ≈ 9.07 hours.

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#115

Post by genocidicbunny »

laweijfmvo wrote: post #73
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.

I would like to see laws addressing the issue itself, e.g. banning any collection of location data unless it's explicitly needed and used by the collecting agent/service themselves, and banning sharing/selling it.

Require companies that store that kind of data to carry insurance that can make anyone damaged by the data collection (and leaks of said data) whole. And the 'make whole' amount definitely needs to be individually defined. You shouldn't get away with paying a little fine of a couple thousand USD if your data leak causes me millions in damages; In that case, you owe me those millions back.

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#116

Post by NickC25 »

sumtechguy wrote: post #37
issafram wrote: post #27

Drop in an ocean. Should've done 5% of annual revenue. That would send a much bigger message.

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

Make the C-Suite and Board personally responsible, and make sure the fine is LARGE. $47 million for Verizon is nothing. They profited nearly $80 Billion last year. They spent roughly the same amount for the naming rights to an NBA team's practice facility back in 2020. They paid Beyonce $30 million for a 30 second Super Bowl commercial.

You have to fine the drivers of the corporation's unethical behavior, not the corporation itself, or else there will be no fundamental change or reason for corporations at large to not act with complete disregard for the law.

The shady shit would stop in a heartbeat if some 25-30 people at the top had to collectively come up with a billion+ in cash in a week. No bonds, debt, IOU's from the corporation itself, stocks, mortgages, nothing - straight up cash.

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#118

Post by colinsane »

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…

how far along are they into correlating different datasets and de-anonymizing? say i buy everything in cash: prepaid SIM, a cellphone without my name in the purchase history, not running anything i didn't compile from source (NixOS on a phone): do you figure my data's useless enough so as to not make it into these datasets? or they're accustomed to correlating so many data points that the cash-only route doesn't accomplish much anymore?

Re: FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

#120

Post by hocuspocus »

sroussey wrote: post #91
hocuspocus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Location data that includes your home in the suburbs is pretty identifiable.

Carrier position accuracy is pretty shit in low density areas, you aggregate (e.g. per H3 tile), apply scaling (no operator has 100% market share) and K-anonymity.
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