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But Facebook, Google, Microsoft, et al are still free to sell phone location data acquired through apps (or Android itself in the case of Google), right? I wonder if there is any hope of laws to limit the ability of companies to sell this data...
IIRC, Google doesn't sell your personal location data: https://safety.google/privacy/ads-and-data/ Disclaimer: I work at Google.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did you get from “mobile company providing location data” to “law enforcement use of stingrays to obtain location data”?
Not much of a difference really. Mainly just that LE uses their own equipment instead of that of the carrier. This brings up a separate FCC issue: Why is it okay for LE to transmit on the cellular bands for this purpose, when it provably can interfere with emergency communications (such as a 911 call)?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So this Supreme Court ruling has eliminated all use of Stingray-like equipment by all law enforcement agencies unless they have a warrant? Wow! Looks like Harris will be going of business soon, and no more DRT boxes flying over cities?
Why are you being downvoted for pointing out mass surveillance and extremely targeted surveillance are both still legal and frequently used.
On its merits, the accusation of hypocrisy is also a non-sequitur: from "one bad thing is stopped" never follows "all bad things are stopped". The implied expectation is impossible to fulfill.
It's also unhelpful, politically, in a way that this thread, HN generally, or even "the internet" are full of: If everyone is always assuming the worst while expecting the best, it removes all incentives for anyone in power to behave honorably. After all, if you're going to be accused to be corrupt and/or incompetent anyway, why even try?
I'll celebrate when the money from the fines is actually sitting in the Treasury account, and not a moment before. Pai is outrageously corrupt, is best friends with telecom CEOs, and with near-certainty will cave to requests to have these punishments reduced to next-to-nothing.
Yes. Particularly given that Pai's FCC has developed a bit of a habit of levying fines and then not bothering to actually collect them.
But Facebook, Google, Microsoft, et al are still free to sell phone location data acquired through apps (or Android itself in the case of Google), right? I wonder if there is any hope of laws to limit the ability of companies to sell this data...
It's time to differentiate selling "Bob is in Location X" from "Show this ad to all people at location X". The first case is a far far bigger privacy concern to me, and seems to be what mobile networks were doing. Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are doing the latter.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIRC, Google doesn't sell your personal location data: https://safety.google/privacy/ads-and-data/ Disclaimer: I work at Google.
Do they refuse warrantless requests?
But Facebook, Google, Microsoft, et al are still free to sell phone location data acquired through apps (or Android itself in the case of Google), right? I wonder if there is any hope of laws to limit the ability of companies to sell this data...
It's time to differentiate selling "Bob is in Location X" from "Show this ad to all people at location X". The first case is a far far bigger privacy concern to me, and seems to be what mobile networks were doing. Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are doing the latter.
> lawmakers in November accused[1] the FCC of failing to protect consumers’ privacy, and said that major wireless carriers were disclosing real-time location to data compilers without consumers’ consent or knowledge. The information could be obtained by companies including bounty hunters, the lawmakers said in a letter.
> [1]: https://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrats.energycomme...
> -- as reported by Bloomburg
> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-31/wireless-...
The FCC really has become just a lobbying goat under Pai. Yikes.
Toothless fines. Indict corporate officers or employees that did it... then you’ll get change.
I think income-based fines are illegal under ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ though, in the United States, (not a lawyer), so maybe that won’t fly.