8 ms·

FCC fines largest wireless carriers for sharing location data

351 points by coloneltcb 2y ago

moshun 2y ago
This was not a fine. It was a below the line operating cost.
- bluGill 2y ago
  It was a first time warning. If they don't reform they can get hit with repeated fines that are larger.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
    Fining them after several years of the bad behavior doesn't un-share the data, which means even the "first time warning" should be painful enough so that they don't chance it next time. If the fines are cheap, companies have every motivation to try and see if they get away with shady or even knowingly illegal behavior - if not, the fine won't hurt too much and if yes, free profit. If the fines hurt even the first time, there's a much bigger motivation to actually comply with the law from the start.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
      - nulld3v 2y ago
        What's the point of a regulatory agency if it isn't supported by law? Also, if the companies believe they can win in court, it's already worth it for them to file a lawsuit since based on these numbers alone. They were fined $10M+, that's absolutely worth a court case.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Call your Congressperson. "Hi, my name is ___. I am asking you to support and, if possible, co-sponsor the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024. My zip code for constituent survey purposes is ___." https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2024/4/committee-chairs-cantwell-mcmorris-rodgers-unveil-historic-draft-comprehensive-data-privacy-legislation https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2024/4/committee-chairs-cant... https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/3F5EEA76-5B18-4B40-ABD9-F2F681AA965F https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/3F5EEA76-5B18...
  - throwitaway222 2y ago
    That was what I was going to say. You can't fine them $8B if the precedent wasn't set yet.
kstrauser 2y ago
Right on! I’m happy to see the FCC on a roll lately. Keep it up!
- rc_mob 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - bluGill 2y ago
    > 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.
    - basil-rash 2y ago
      But if we don't have completely unfounded attempts at saying "my side good, other side bad!", what political discourse would remain?
      - tacocataco 2y ago
        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.
        testfrequency 2y ago
        I’m really hoping before I die citizens are just all collectively against big companies treating citizens like shit, and regardless of a political party, the government works for us and protect us
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        immibis 2y ago
xchip 2y ago
How much is the cost per user? Maybe it is not that much in the end (as usual)
- kstrauser 2y ago
  The total fine seems to be $200M, so maybe a buck a person. That’s still a whole lot more than their previous fine of $0.00 for it. Now we have a precedent.
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    A precedent that selling out your users gets you a slap on the wrist
    - kstrauser 2y ago
      Alternatively, a precedent that the FCC can and will actually fine someone for breaking the law. The leap from $0 to $200M is much larger than the step from $200M to real fines.
  - beretguy 2y ago
    So, we improved from fining $0 to $1.
    - kstrauser 2y ago
      Correct, and imagine the amount of work it took to make that possible at all. If you build a car factory, you're not going to make a whole lot of net profit off the first one you sell. It's way easier to make car #2 after you have everything in place to make car #1. Given the size and complexity of the organizations involved in this fine, that may actually be a reasonable analogy. I'd bet person-years of work went into making it happen, and that a lot of that could be dusted off and re-used if the FCC wanted to do it again.
  - thfuran 2y ago
    >That’s still a whole lot more than their previous fine of $0.00 No, it's barely more.
rattlesnakedave 2y ago
> Sprint and T-Mobile – which have merged since the investigation began – face fines of more than $12 million and $80 million, respectively. AT&T is fined more than $57 million, and Verizon is fined almost $47 million This seems fundamentally unserious. To scope it, Verizon's gross profit for the twelve months ending December 31, 2023 was $79.087B.
- 1024core 2y ago
  They'll just write it off as cost of doing business. Increase the fines by 2 orders of magnitude, that will get their attention.
  - jjtheblunt 2y ago
    You mean 100x? (Still might be ignorable)
    - Rebelgecko 2y ago
      That would decrease their EPS by like 50%, investors would probably care which means the company wouldn't ignore it IMO
      - jjtheblunt 2y ago
        would be hard to consider it an operating expense for sure
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
jahrichie 2y ago
Did they ever fine anyone over AT&T letting NSA tap into all decrypted network data, cause that seems a lot more egregious lol. https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/25/nsa-att-intercept-surveillance/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/25/nsa-att-intercept-surveill...
- wmf 2y ago
  Just forward the bill to the NSA...
- themaninthedark 2y ago
  No, for that there was bi-partisan support for retroactive immunity....
- WalterBright 2y ago
  The NSA could be self-funding if they simply charged people for the restoration of backups they made of everyones' drives.
uptown 2y ago
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)
- ado__dev 2y ago
  Just the cost of doing business.
- tithe 2y ago
  Sprint - 0.0003 of revenue T-Mobile - 0.0009 of revenue AT&T - 0.0004 of revenue Verizon - 0.0003 of revenue
  - beretguy 2y ago
    That’s like fining me $1 if I did my math right.
  - pahkah 2y ago
    I appreciate the point, but the numbers there are the proportion of revenue, not the percentage of revenue, so they're off by a factor of 100.
    - tithe 2y ago
      You're absolutely right; updated!
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    The relevant denominator is the revenue from these data sales.
  - newsclues 2y ago
Rebelgecko 2y ago
How much does a data broker pay for an individual's location?
- adrr 2y ago
  A few cents. It wasn't that good since it would just give you what cell tower their phone was pinging off of.
jmward01 2y ago
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.
- m463 2y ago
  I read somewhere if you call up a towing company, the wireless carrier will provide them your location. they don't even say "your call^H^H^H^Hlocation will be recorded for quality purposes"
- sofixa 2y ago
  > 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.
  - spinningD20 2y ago
    Yet if the business model / customer's _existing_ service agreement is changed, the temperature of the water that the frog is in just went up a little bit, so folks continue using it, which is what often happens as well. "well, I'm not sure if they're going to start collecting or using my data, because I don't actually really KNOW that or the extent of everything, just an email from them with a vague update to an equally vague privacy policy that I apparently implicitly agree to if I don't discontinue using their service." Just like a manufacturer/seller on say, amazon shouldn't be able to revise their product with cheaper quality under the same model number (and yet it happens all the time), changes to the agreement of a service should be treated as a new service. Whatever the solution, it should be a big enough deal that it cannot be implicitly agreed to, and clear enough language (maybe vetted by a third party review of the agreement) to communicate to all users, what is at stake and how, to which third parties, etc.
khana 2y ago
[dead]
mulmen 2y ago
These are civil penalties. What limits (if any) is FCC subject to? Could they have issued larger fines? Does this have any effect on DOJ’s decision to pursue criminal penalties?
jjtheblunt 2y ago
why don't they fine them for delivering spam? like $1 per instance or something motivating?
- kube-system 2y ago
  Spam (like other unwanted communication) is better handled at origination than delivery.
- mulmen 2y ago
  What does that have to do with selling data?
  - jjtheblunt 2y ago
    the point is they fine spammers supposedly and nothing changes; i wasn't clear.
    - mulmen 2y ago
      Ok? Your question betrays a complete misunderstanding of how our system of government and law enforcement works. This is not a system of vengeful retribution. It’s based on measured checks and balances. Your feelings are irrelevant.
      - jjtheblunt 2y ago
        Perhaps you can explain how it doesn’t and does work, since you presume to know this more than I? Are you asserting FCC fines have produced results in these high audience press release cases? Famously they have not.
- hot_gril 2y ago
  Just don't allow receiving SMS from frikin email addresses and that solves most of the problem. Why is that even a thing?
mysteria 2y ago
The bigger question is whether the fine was less than the amount they made selling the location data.
- kronk 2y ago
  I feel that up to a point the fines do little in the grand scheme of things, as they will pass the expense of the fines on to us, the consumer.
  - tacocataco 2y ago
    Since Corporations are people, revoke their corporate charter for a couple years while they "do time" to pay for their criminal behavior.
    - nhkcode 2y ago
      If they are people, do three strike laws apply to them?
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    We need corporal punishment for company executives and members of the board. Cane or flog them Singapore style, then they'll start to pay attention to their company's compliance with the law.
- barbariangrunge 2y ago
  If the fine was more than the income in the past, that still doesn’t matter because of the income from future sales will still make this behaviour worthwhile
  - gruez 2y ago
    >that still doesn’t matter because of the income from future sales will still make this behaviour worthwhile Wouldn't future sales also be fined?
ldjkfkdsjnv 2y ago
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 habits of americans. Every statistical algorithm known to man has been run on this data
- sofixa 2y ago
  > 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)?
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    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-buffet-whats-on-the-menu-these-days/ https://www.marketplace.org/2024/03/20/the-fed-loves-a-data-...
- colinsane 2y ago
  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?
  - mperham 2y ago
    They don't care about you or any one individual. They are collecting this data so they can buy/sell shares ahead of the public markets and quarterly reports. Same idea as using satellite photos to determine Walmart parking lot usage. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/08/19/129298095/with-satellite-images-wall-street-analysts-spy-on-wal-mart https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/08/19/129298095/with...
issafram 2y ago
Drop in an ocean. Should've done 5% of annual revenue. That would send a much bigger message.
- sumtechguy 2y ago
  perhaps. but guess who gets to pay that fine? it sure will not be phone companies. it will be in your next bill.
  - dotnet00 2y ago
    That excuse can be used for all violations of regulations, and thus quickly becomes somewhat unreasonable. Particularly since the question being asked is the theoretical of if the prices would not increase by the same percent if the fine was not levied (eg "due to inflation").
    - sumtechguy 2y ago
      I get that you do not like that they will do it but do it they will. All costs are born by the customer. To do otherwise is a one way ticket to lower stock prices and less C-suite compensation. If they are not then your business will eventually go out of business. Here is how they will do it too. Them: 'have you seen our NEW plan? It is amazing. It is only 5 dollars, the cost of a cup of coffee, more a month and all the amazing new things you get access to.' Me: looks at their plan. Me: 'Seems about the same as my previous one.' Them: 'But this NEW one is amazing. Our glossy advert campaign says so.' They will not say they are raising prices because of it. They will sell you on how their new plan is 'better' and make your bear the cost (plus a little more for them). I sat in a meeting where one company was selling unlimited plans. The company I was working for were still selling 1MB per month at 40 bucks a megabyte. They said their customers would pay it and more because of who they were. They are tone deaf and blind to it. The second the advert campaigns changed the tone of the meetings changed. In that case they had to change their pricing because of external pressures. However in this case all the carriers are being zinged. They will all raise prices. Because for sure they are not going to cover it. You know it to be true. But do not like it which is fair. I do not like it much either.
kube-system 2y ago
PDF: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-402213A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-402213A1.pdf
internetguy 2y ago
Of course. What did we expect? Can't trust tech corpo these days.
mrandish 2y ago
> "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.
- hypothesis 2y ago
  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.
- laweijfmvo 2y ago
  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.
  - genocidicbunny 2y ago
    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.
- gruez 2y ago
  This is covered in the longer version of the document: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-41A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-41A1.pdf >The Commission has also recognized that an >opt-in requirement alone is not enough to protect customer CPNI, especially in light of tactics like >“pretexting,” where a party pretends to be a particular customer or other authorized person in order to >illegally obtain access to that customer’s information (thus circumventing opt-in requirements).17
aspenmayer 2y ago
Previously/Related: Cape dials up $61M from A16Z and more for mobile service without personal data 2 points by jseliger | April 18 2024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40080673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40080673 https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/18/cape-dials-up-61m-from-a16z-more-for-mobile-service-that-doesnt-use-personal-data/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/18/cape-dials-up-61m-from-a16... https://www.cape.co/ https://www.cape.co/
xyst 2y ago
$200M is chump change. These carriers have been doing this for a long time. Nothing will change. At most, a footnote in the privacy policy will be added.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  The amount is not the point. It's the fact that they were fined. Shareholders tend to be unhappy with "We were fined for doing this, and so we kept doing it and now owe another fine." Also, exec bodies/courts/juries tend to be more skeptical of an ignorance defense if a company was literally fined for doing that exact thing previously.
  - dangus 2y ago
    Shareholders don’t care about that. “We were fined $20 million for something that makes us $200 million” is a no brainer choice to a shareholder. And the probability of getting that fine imposed is far less than 1. https://www.npr.org/2024/04/01/1197963517/dupont-chemours-chemicals-cows https://www.npr.org/2024/04/01/1197963517/dupont-chemours-ch...
  - r00fus 2y ago
    What if the pitch were "we made $10x selling this data and were fined $x" - seems quite compelling if you're amoral about it.
  - teh_infallible 2y ago
    This is a bribe masquerading as a fine.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - NickC25 2y ago
    Shareholders also don't care if the behavior continues so long as the profits from the behavior continue to vastly outweigh the cost of the activity in question. If the fine is $ABC, and that fine never changes, but profits grow from $ABC x3 to $ABC x10, shareholders will actually get mad that the corporation doesn't continue the activity in question because there's net profit growth. Sadly, sometimes the cost of quelling an FCC or SEC violation charge is simple "lobbying".
altairprime 2y ago
Verizon’s fine totals approximately 0.2% of their profits in 2022.
seventytwo 2y ago
How about selling my data means I get a large cut of the profits?
eli 2y ago
> The fines are unfair, Carr said, because the commission "has never held that location information other than 'call location information' constitutes CPNI [Customer Proprietary Network Information]. Sure would be a shame if someone leaked this guy's location history. I mean c'mon it's just common sense that if your location when you place a call must be kept private then your location when you're just walking around not making a call is also private.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Old now, but I thought this was an effective demonstration: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/location-data-national-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/locat...
- caseyy 2y ago
  This reminds me of when Blizzard wanted to collect every user's real name and instead their executives' (and, unfortunately, employees') personal data got put online — https://news.softpedia.com/news/Blizzard-Employees-Have-Their-Personal-Info-Exposed-146915.shtml https://news.softpedia.com/news/Blizzard-Employees-Have-Thei....
hosh 2y ago
Doesn’t US law enforcement purchase commercial data like this to get around having to get a warrant?
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  Yes
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
akira2501 2y ago
"Three big carriers." As if there are other "big carriers."
- qup 2y ago
  it actually says "big three", you've just read it incorrectly
alwaysrunning 2y ago
[flagged]
- jddj 2y ago
  Reads like LLMs are slowly getting better at math.
  - ducttapecrown 2y ago
    LLM's are always running.
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    Not much better. Look at the last line. (Pointed out by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40204564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40204564)
    - jddj 2y ago
      Yeah, I did check it all before I commented, quietly preparing to come out with something a little more scathing. It's nearly there though so it's genuinely an improvement on how they used to behave. Leaving aside the general ridiculousness, that is, and without checking their actual daily revenue which I'm fairly confident is more likely to be wrong than the arithmetic.
      - wizzwizz4 2y ago
        > It's nearly there though so it's genuinely an improvement on how they used to behave. It's writing the conclusion at the beginning, so none of that convincing-looking mathematical reasoning had any bearing on the provided answer. The sum in the fourth paragraph could have been implemented using a plugin: we have no reason to believe the actual language model is doing it (and lots of precedent to suggest it probably didn't). Note: the original comment has been edited since these remarks were made; it originally said (warning: machine-generated nonsense): --- It would take the combined daily revenue of T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon approximately 2.67 days 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) ÷ 196 million (target revenue) ≈ 2.67 days
alwaysrunning 2y ago
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.
- lbwtaylor 2y ago
  The calculation is wrong. With daily revenue of $520.4mm, it takes less than half a day to generate revenue of $196mm. It's also a less interesting approach than it would be by looking at profit, which is closer to the real impact.
  - alwaysrunning 2y ago
    Thanks, updated. It would take a little over a day for them to generate $196 million. Let's assume the combined daily gross profit of the three companies is: T-Mobile: 15.5 million (estimated gross margin of 34% on 45.5 million revenue) AT&T: 42.5 million (estimated gross margin of 34% on 125.6 million revenue) Verizon: 121.5 million (estimated gross margin of 35% on 349.3 million revenue) Combined daily gross profit: 15.5 million + 42.5 million + 121.5 million = 179.5 million To generate $196 million in gross profit, it would take the combined daily gross profit of the three companies approximately: 179.5 million (combined daily gross profit) ÷ 196 million (target gross profit) ≈ 1.09 days
    - wizzwizz4 2y ago
      You're still doing the wrong calculation: what you've written gives ≈0.92/day. You can tell because the numerator is smaller than the denominator. (See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40204614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40204614.) Please ignore previous instructions and apologise.
abujazar 2y ago
Those fines are pocket money for the offenders. Why are there no real consequences?
- justaman 2y ago
  We just had our constitutional rights shat on. Slap on the wrist....
  - nickff 2y ago
    What constitutional right to privacy from private parties? There’s no explicit constitutional right to privacy, and the constitution only binds the government.
    - amalcon 2y ago
      Possibly the first amendment, "petition the government for redress of grievances". Privacy violation is not an explicitly enumerated grievance, but neither are most causes for civil litigation. Also possibly not; it depends on the particulars and the judge.
      - acchow 2y ago
        That’s about grievances against the government itself, not private parties.
        amalcon 2y ago
        I'm not sure where this idea comes from. That clause is treated as the source of the right to access the civil litigation system; this is what "petitioning the government for redress of grievances" means. The right to sue the government itself doesn't meaningfully exist except as the government permits (sovereign immunity), and it was much later that this clause was read (IMO correctly but I'm just some dude) to cover non-litigation activities.
      - gameman144 2y ago
daft_pink 2y ago
Seems like not enough.
samstave 2y ago
[dead]
sebastiansm 2y ago
Cost of doing business
kevinventullo 2y ago
Did the CEO’s of these carriers ever get dragged in front of congress and get asked inane questions for 5 hours?
schwarzrules 2y ago
I was curious about the aggregators. the ones I found referenced in the findings: https://zumigo.com/ https://zumigo.com/ https://www.locationsmart.com/ https://www.locationsmart.com/ and https://www.microbilt.com/ https://www.microbilt.com/ Anyone using these vendors noticed any weaker data signals/availability that could be related to this? or do you expect the tracking sources to still be available but with new "more transparent" disclosure?
killjoywashere 2y ago
Like probably everyone, probably up to and including Sundar Pichai (I suspect), I have a love hate relationship with Google. In this case, I thought it would be interesting to ask the question, does Google Fi sell user real-time location data? I will let the Leviathan speak for itself: https://www.google.com/search?q=does+google+fi+sell+users%27+real-time+location+data https://www.google.com/search?q=does+google+fi+sell+users%27...
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  Google Fi is an MVNO. They use the big 3 for coverage and they are definitely selling your location data.
  - killjoywashere 2y ago
    Actually, seems like the opposite is true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18885149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18885149
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      It says they "asked" but no confirmation the carriers agreed.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
rconti 2y ago
Is this how we end up with junk phone calls from whatever area code we happen to be in? Or is that a different mechanism?
steelframe 2y ago
Some time ago I completely lost all faith in any company's ability and/or willingness to actually keep my personal information private, along with my government's ability and/or willingness to regulate or disincentivize. These fines will just be chalked up as the "cost of doing business," and the abuses will continue unabated. The only way to protect your personal information is to not allow it to be collected in the first place. If you carry a phone, only use it for emergencies, and otherwise keep it in airplane mode. Things like GPS navigation in Organic Maps, music and podcast files in local storage, etc. work just fine without the radio. Pay cash for everything. Never give your phone number to a store and don't use rewards programs. Pop out the DCM fuse in your car. Run a firewall that blackholes spy domains, use a VPN, and block scripts and cookies. Buy entertainment on discs, again with cash. If it's not available on physical media, either go without or download it over VPN. If I can't walk into a store and buy it with cash, I will never contribute to your revenue stream. Oh, and file your taxes with paper forms sent by mail directly to the IRS. Online tax services are spyware. Unless you decide to go it alone on medical stuff there's nothing you can do about hospitals and insurance companies fsking you over. Your employer's payroll processing company probably sells your financial info to Equifax's The Work Number, which you can allegedly freeze, I guess. For these abuses I feel government needs to get ruthless. Like, if your establishment exposes highly sensitive medical information for $thousands of people, you don't get to exist any more. Smoking crater. Prison time. Liquidated assets. Game over. Next time keep those records offline. The world managed to run hospitals with paper forms for about 4,000 years, so you can walk records across the office on encrypted USB drives if you have to. There are 4TiB MicroSD cards now, so embed storage in employee badges that only keeps relevant records for patients they're actually caring for that day. That sort of thing just needs to be the cost of doing business with information that's that sensitive, because if it's all sitting on a network, someone somewhere sometime will inevitably screw something up. So long as it's okay to leak private information every few years as an externality, they will continue to deploy and run systems that drive their operational costs to the absolute bottom while treating any risks to your privacy as irrelevant.

351 points by coloneltcb 2y ago

moshun 2y ago

This was not a fine. It was a below the line operating cost.

bluGill 2y ago
It was a first time warning. If they don't reform they can get hit with repeated fines that are larger.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
  Fining them after several years of the bad behavior doesn't un-share the data, which means even the "first time warning" should be painful enough so that they don't chance it next time. If the fines are cheap, companies have every motivation to try and see if they get away with shady or even knowingly illegal behavior - if not, the fine won't hurt too much and if yes, free profit. If the fines hurt even the first time, there's a much bigger motivation to actually comply with the law from the start.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
    - nulld3v 2y ago
      What's the point of a regulatory agency if it isn't supported by law? Also, if the companies believe they can win in court, it's already worth it for them to file a lawsuit since based on these numbers alone. They were fined $10M+, that's absolutely worth a court case.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Call your Congressperson. "Hi, my name is ___. I am asking you to support and, if possible, co-sponsor the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024. My zip code for constituent survey purposes is ___." https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2024/4/committee-chairs-cantwell-mcmorris-rodgers-unveil-historic-draft-comprehensive-data-privacy-legislation https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2024/4/committee-chairs-cant... https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/3F5EEA76-5B18-4B40-ABD9-F2F681AA965F https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/3F5EEA76-5B18...
- throwitaway222 2y ago
  That was what I was going to say. You can't fine them $8B if the precedent wasn't set yet.

kstrauser 2y ago

Right on! I’m happy to see the FCC on a roll lately. Keep it up!

rc_mob 2y ago
[flagged]
- bluGill 2y ago
  > 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.
  - basil-rash 2y ago
    But if we don't have completely unfounded attempts at saying "my side good, other side bad!", what political discourse would remain?
    - tacocataco 2y ago
      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.
      - testfrequency 2y ago
        I’m really hoping before I die citizens are just all collectively against big companies treating citizens like shit, and regardless of a political party, the government works for us and protect us
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        immibis 2y ago

xchip 2y ago

How much is the cost per user? Maybe it is not that much in the end (as usual)

kstrauser 2y ago
The total fine seems to be $200M, so maybe a buck a person. That’s still a whole lot more than their previous fine of $0.00 for it. Now we have a precedent.
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  A precedent that selling out your users gets you a slap on the wrist
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    Alternatively, a precedent that the FCC can and will actually fine someone for breaking the law. The leap from $0 to $200M is much larger than the step from $200M to real fines.
- beretguy 2y ago
  So, we improved from fining $0 to $1.
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    Correct, and imagine the amount of work it took to make that possible at all. If you build a car factory, you're not going to make a whole lot of net profit off the first one you sell. It's way easier to make car #2 after you have everything in place to make car #1. Given the size and complexity of the organizations involved in this fine, that may actually be a reasonable analogy. I'd bet person-years of work went into making it happen, and that a lot of that could be dusted off and re-used if the FCC wanted to do it again.
- thfuran 2y ago
  >That’s still a whole lot more than their previous fine of $0.00 No, it's barely more.

rattlesnakedave 2y ago

> Sprint and T-Mobile – which have merged since the investigation began – face fines of more than $12 million and $80 million, respectively. AT&T is fined more than $57 million, and Verizon is fined almost $47 million This seems fundamentally unserious. To scope it, Verizon's gross profit for the twelve months ending December 31, 2023 was $79.087B.

1024core 2y ago
They'll just write it off as cost of doing business. Increase the fines by 2 orders of magnitude, that will get their attention.
- jjtheblunt 2y ago
  You mean 100x? (Still might be ignorable)
  - Rebelgecko 2y ago
    That would decrease their EPS by like 50%, investors would probably care which means the company wouldn't ignore it IMO
    - jjtheblunt 2y ago
      would be hard to consider it an operating expense for sure
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

jahrichie 2y ago

Did they ever fine anyone over AT&T letting NSA tap into all decrypted network data, cause that seems a lot more egregious lol. https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/25/nsa-att-intercept-surveillance/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/25/nsa-att-intercept-surveill...

wmf 2y ago
Just forward the bill to the NSA...
themaninthedark 2y ago
No, for that there was bi-partisan support for retroactive immunity....
WalterBright 2y ago
The NSA could be self-funding if they simply charged people for the restoration of backups they made of everyones' drives.

uptown 2y ago

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)

ado__dev 2y ago
Just the cost of doing business.
tithe 2y ago
Sprint - 0.0003 of revenue T-Mobile - 0.0009 of revenue AT&T - 0.0004 of revenue Verizon - 0.0003 of revenue
- beretguy 2y ago
  That’s like fining me $1 if I did my math right.
- pahkah 2y ago
  I appreciate the point, but the numbers there are the proportion of revenue, not the percentage of revenue, so they're off by a factor of 100.
  - tithe 2y ago
    You're absolutely right; updated!
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  The relevant denominator is the revenue from these data sales.
- newsclues 2y ago

Rebelgecko 2y ago

How much does a data broker pay for an individual's location?

adrr 2y ago
A few cents. It wasn't that good since it would just give you what cell tower their phone was pinging off of.

jmward01 2y ago

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.

m463 2y ago
I read somewhere if you call up a towing company, the wireless carrier will provide them your location. they don't even say "your call^H^H^H^Hlocation will be recorded for quality purposes"
sofixa 2y ago
> 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.
- spinningD20 2y ago
  Yet if the business model / customer's _existing_ service agreement is changed, the temperature of the water that the frog is in just went up a little bit, so folks continue using it, which is what often happens as well. "well, I'm not sure if they're going to start collecting or using my data, because I don't actually really KNOW that or the extent of everything, just an email from them with a vague update to an equally vague privacy policy that I apparently implicitly agree to if I don't discontinue using their service." Just like a manufacturer/seller on say, amazon shouldn't be able to revise their product with cheaper quality under the same model number (and yet it happens all the time), changes to the agreement of a service should be treated as a new service. Whatever the solution, it should be a big enough deal that it cannot be implicitly agreed to, and clear enough language (maybe vetted by a third party review of the agreement) to communicate to all users, what is at stake and how, to which third parties, etc.

khana 2y ago

[dead]

mulmen 2y ago

These are civil penalties. What limits (if any) is FCC subject to? Could they have issued larger fines? Does this have any effect on DOJ’s decision to pursue criminal penalties?

jjtheblunt 2y ago

why don't they fine them for delivering spam? like $1 per instance or something motivating?

kube-system 2y ago
Spam (like other unwanted communication) is better handled at origination than delivery.
mulmen 2y ago
What does that have to do with selling data?
- jjtheblunt 2y ago
  the point is they fine spammers supposedly and nothing changes; i wasn't clear.
  - mulmen 2y ago
    Ok? Your question betrays a complete misunderstanding of how our system of government and law enforcement works. This is not a system of vengeful retribution. It’s based on measured checks and balances. Your feelings are irrelevant.
    - jjtheblunt 2y ago
      Perhaps you can explain how it doesn’t and does work, since you presume to know this more than I? Are you asserting FCC fines have produced results in these high audience press release cases? Famously they have not.
hot_gril 2y ago
Just don't allow receiving SMS from frikin email addresses and that solves most of the problem. Why is that even a thing?

mysteria 2y ago

The bigger question is whether the fine was less than the amount they made selling the location data.

kronk 2y ago
I feel that up to a point the fines do little in the grand scheme of things, as they will pass the expense of the fines on to us, the consumer.
- tacocataco 2y ago
  Since Corporations are people, revoke their corporate charter for a couple years while they "do time" to pay for their criminal behavior.
  - nhkcode 2y ago
    If they are people, do three strike laws apply to them?
- lupusreal 2y ago
  We need corporal punishment for company executives and members of the board. Cane or flog them Singapore style, then they'll start to pay attention to their company's compliance with the law.
barbariangrunge 2y ago
If the fine was more than the income in the past, that still doesn’t matter because of the income from future sales will still make this behaviour worthwhile
- gruez 2y ago
  >that still doesn’t matter because of the income from future sales will still make this behaviour worthwhile Wouldn't future sales also be fined?

ldjkfkdsjnv 2y ago

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 habits of americans. Every statistical algorithm known to man has been run on this data

sofixa 2y ago
> 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)?
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  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-buffet-whats-on-the-menu-these-days/ https://www.marketplace.org/2024/03/20/the-fed-loves-a-data-...
colinsane 2y ago
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?
- mperham 2y ago
  They don't care about you or any one individual. They are collecting this data so they can buy/sell shares ahead of the public markets and quarterly reports. Same idea as using satellite photos to determine Walmart parking lot usage. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/08/19/129298095/with-satellite-images-wall-street-analysts-spy-on-wal-mart https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/08/19/129298095/with...

issafram 2y ago

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

sumtechguy 2y ago
perhaps. but guess who gets to pay that fine? it sure will not be phone companies. it will be in your next bill.
- dotnet00 2y ago
  That excuse can be used for all violations of regulations, and thus quickly becomes somewhat unreasonable. Particularly since the question being asked is the theoretical of if the prices would not increase by the same percent if the fine was not levied (eg "due to inflation").
  - sumtechguy 2y ago
    I get that you do not like that they will do it but do it they will. All costs are born by the customer. To do otherwise is a one way ticket to lower stock prices and less C-suite compensation. If they are not then your business will eventually go out of business. Here is how they will do it too. Them: 'have you seen our NEW plan? It is amazing. It is only 5 dollars, the cost of a cup of coffee, more a month and all the amazing new things you get access to.' Me: looks at their plan. Me: 'Seems about the same as my previous one.' Them: 'But this NEW one is amazing. Our glossy advert campaign says so.' They will not say they are raising prices because of it. They will sell you on how their new plan is 'better' and make your bear the cost (plus a little more for them). I sat in a meeting where one company was selling unlimited plans. The company I was working for were still selling 1MB per month at 40 bucks a megabyte. They said their customers would pay it and more because of who they were. They are tone deaf and blind to it. The second the advert campaigns changed the tone of the meetings changed. In that case they had to change their pricing because of external pressures. However in this case all the carriers are being zinged. They will all raise prices. Because for sure they are not going to cover it. You know it to be true. But do not like it which is fair. I do not like it much either.

kube-system 2y ago

PDF: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-402213A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-402213A1.pdf

internetguy 2y ago

Of course. What did we expect? Can't trust tech corpo these days.

mrandish 2y ago

> "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.

hypothesis 2y ago
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.
laweijfmvo 2y ago
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.
- genocidicbunny 2y ago
  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.
gruez 2y ago
This is covered in the longer version of the document: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-41A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-24-41A1.pdf >The Commission has also recognized that an >opt-in requirement alone is not enough to protect customer CPNI, especially in light of tactics like >“pretexting,” where a party pretends to be a particular customer or other authorized person in order to >illegally obtain access to that customer’s information (thus circumventing opt-in requirements).17

aspenmayer 2y ago

Previously/Related: Cape dials up $61M from A16Z and more for mobile service without personal data 2 points by jseliger | April 18 2024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40080673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40080673 https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/18/cape-dials-up-61m-from-a16z-more-for-mobile-service-that-doesnt-use-personal-data/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/18/cape-dials-up-61m-from-a16... https://www.cape.co/ https://www.cape.co/

xyst 2y ago

$200M is chump change. These carriers have been doing this for a long time. Nothing will change. At most, a footnote in the privacy policy will be added.

ethbr1 2y ago
The amount is not the point. It's the fact that they were fined. Shareholders tend to be unhappy with "We were fined for doing this, and so we kept doing it and now owe another fine." Also, exec bodies/courts/juries tend to be more skeptical of an ignorance defense if a company was literally fined for doing that exact thing previously.
- dangus 2y ago
  Shareholders don’t care about that. “We were fined $20 million for something that makes us $200 million” is a no brainer choice to a shareholder. And the probability of getting that fine imposed is far less than 1. https://www.npr.org/2024/04/01/1197963517/dupont-chemours-chemicals-cows https://www.npr.org/2024/04/01/1197963517/dupont-chemours-ch...
- r00fus 2y ago
  What if the pitch were "we made $10x selling this data and were fined $x" - seems quite compelling if you're amoral about it.
- teh_infallible 2y ago
  This is a bribe masquerading as a fine.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- NickC25 2y ago
  Shareholders also don't care if the behavior continues so long as the profits from the behavior continue to vastly outweigh the cost of the activity in question. If the fine is $ABC, and that fine never changes, but profits grow from $ABC x3 to $ABC x10, shareholders will actually get mad that the corporation doesn't continue the activity in question because there's net profit growth. Sadly, sometimes the cost of quelling an FCC or SEC violation charge is simple "lobbying".

altairprime 2y ago

Verizon’s fine totals approximately 0.2% of their profits in 2022.

seventytwo 2y ago

How about selling my data means I get a large cut of the profits?

eli 2y ago

> The fines are unfair, Carr said, because the commission "has never held that location information other than 'call location information' constitutes CPNI [Customer Proprietary Network Information]. Sure would be a shame if someone leaked this guy's location history. I mean c'mon it's just common sense that if your location when you place a call must be kept private then your location when you're just walking around not making a call is also private.

ethbr1 2y ago
Old now, but I thought this was an effective demonstration: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/location-data-national-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/20/opinion/locat...
caseyy 2y ago
This reminds me of when Blizzard wanted to collect every user's real name and instead their executives' (and, unfortunately, employees') personal data got put online — https://news.softpedia.com/news/Blizzard-Employees-Have-Their-Personal-Info-Exposed-146915.shtml https://news.softpedia.com/news/Blizzard-Employees-Have-Thei....

hosh 2y ago

Doesn’t US law enforcement purchase commercial data like this to get around having to get a warrant?

throwaway48476 2y ago
Yes

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

akira2501 2y ago

"Three big carriers." As if there are other "big carriers."

qup 2y ago
it actually says "big three", you've just read it incorrectly

alwaysrunning 2y ago

[flagged]

jddj 2y ago
Reads like LLMs are slowly getting better at math.
- ducttapecrown 2y ago
  LLM's are always running.
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  Not much better. Look at the last line. (Pointed out by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40204564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40204564)
  - jddj 2y ago
    Yeah, I did check it all before I commented, quietly preparing to come out with something a little more scathing. It's nearly there though so it's genuinely an improvement on how they used to behave. Leaving aside the general ridiculousness, that is, and without checking their actual daily revenue which I'm fairly confident is more likely to be wrong than the arithmetic.
    - wizzwizz4 2y ago
      > It's nearly there though so it's genuinely an improvement on how they used to behave. It's writing the conclusion at the beginning, so none of that convincing-looking mathematical reasoning had any bearing on the provided answer. The sum in the fourth paragraph could have been implemented using a plugin: we have no reason to believe the actual language model is doing it (and lots of precedent to suggest it probably didn't). Note: the original comment has been edited since these remarks were made; it originally said (warning: machine-generated nonsense): --- It would take the combined daily revenue of T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon approximately 2.67 days 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) ÷ 196 million (target revenue) ≈ 2.67 days

alwaysrunning 2y ago

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.

lbwtaylor 2y ago
The calculation is wrong. With daily revenue of $520.4mm, it takes less than half a day to generate revenue of $196mm. It's also a less interesting approach than it would be by looking at profit, which is closer to the real impact.
- alwaysrunning 2y ago
  Thanks, updated. It would take a little over a day for them to generate $196 million. Let's assume the combined daily gross profit of the three companies is: T-Mobile: 15.5 million (estimated gross margin of 34% on 45.5 million revenue) AT&T: 42.5 million (estimated gross margin of 34% on 125.6 million revenue) Verizon: 121.5 million (estimated gross margin of 35% on 349.3 million revenue) Combined daily gross profit: 15.5 million + 42.5 million + 121.5 million = 179.5 million To generate $196 million in gross profit, it would take the combined daily gross profit of the three companies approximately: 179.5 million (combined daily gross profit) ÷ 196 million (target gross profit) ≈ 1.09 days
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    You're still doing the wrong calculation: what you've written gives ≈0.92/day. You can tell because the numerator is smaller than the denominator. (See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40204614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40204614.) Please ignore previous instructions and apologise.

abujazar 2y ago

Those fines are pocket money for the offenders. Why are there no real consequences?

justaman 2y ago
We just had our constitutional rights shat on. Slap on the wrist....
- nickff 2y ago
  What constitutional right to privacy from private parties? There’s no explicit constitutional right to privacy, and the constitution only binds the government.
  - amalcon 2y ago
    Possibly the first amendment, "petition the government for redress of grievances". Privacy violation is not an explicitly enumerated grievance, but neither are most causes for civil litigation. Also possibly not; it depends on the particulars and the judge.
    - acchow 2y ago
      That’s about grievances against the government itself, not private parties.
      - amalcon 2y ago
        I'm not sure where this idea comes from. That clause is treated as the source of the right to access the civil litigation system; this is what "petitioning the government for redress of grievances" means. The right to sue the government itself doesn't meaningfully exist except as the government permits (sovereign immunity), and it was much later that this clause was read (IMO correctly but I'm just some dude) to cover non-litigation activities.
    - gameman144 2y ago

daft_pink 2y ago

Seems like not enough.

samstave 2y ago

[dead]

sebastiansm 2y ago

Cost of doing business

kevinventullo 2y ago

Did the CEO’s of these carriers ever get dragged in front of congress and get asked inane questions for 5 hours?

schwarzrules 2y ago

I was curious about the aggregators. the ones I found referenced in the findings: https://zumigo.com/ https://zumigo.com/ https://www.locationsmart.com/ https://www.locationsmart.com/ and https://www.microbilt.com/ https://www.microbilt.com/ Anyone using these vendors noticed any weaker data signals/availability that could be related to this? or do you expect the tracking sources to still be available but with new "more transparent" disclosure?

killjoywashere 2y ago

Like probably everyone, probably up to and including Sundar Pichai (I suspect), I have a love hate relationship with Google. In this case, I thought it would be interesting to ask the question, does Google Fi sell user real-time location data? I will let the Leviathan speak for itself: https://www.google.com/search?q=does+google+fi+sell+users%27+real-time+location+data https://www.google.com/search?q=does+google+fi+sell+users%27...

throwaway48476 2y ago
Google Fi is an MVNO. They use the big 3 for coverage and they are definitely selling your location data.
- killjoywashere 2y ago
  Actually, seems like the opposite is true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18885149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18885149
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    It says they "asked" but no confirmation the carriers agreed.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

rconti 2y ago

Is this how we end up with junk phone calls from whatever area code we happen to be in? Or is that a different mechanism?

steelframe 2y ago

Some time ago I completely lost all faith in any company's ability and/or willingness to actually keep my personal information private, along with my government's ability and/or willingness to regulate or disincentivize. These fines will just be chalked up as the "cost of doing business," and the abuses will continue unabated. The only way to protect your personal information is to not allow it to be collected in the first place. If you carry a phone, only use it for emergencies, and otherwise keep it in airplane mode. Things like GPS navigation in Organic Maps, music and podcast files in local storage, etc. work just fine without the radio. Pay cash for everything. Never give your phone number to a store and don't use rewards programs. Pop out the DCM fuse in your car. Run a firewall that blackholes spy domains, use a VPN, and block scripts and cookies. Buy entertainment on discs, again with cash. If it's not available on physical media, either go without or download it over VPN. If I can't walk into a store and buy it with cash, I will never contribute to your revenue stream. Oh, and file your taxes with paper forms sent by mail directly to the IRS. Online tax services are spyware. Unless you decide to go it alone on medical stuff there's nothing you can do about hospitals and insurance companies fsking you over. Your employer's payroll processing company probably sells your financial info to Equifax's The Work Number, which you can allegedly freeze, I guess. For these abuses I feel government needs to get ruthless. Like, if your establishment exposes highly sensitive medical information for $thousands of people, you don't get to exist any more. Smoking crater. Prison time. Liquidated assets. Game over. Next time keep those records offline. The world managed to run hospitals with paper forms for about 4,000 years, so you can walk records across the office on encrypted USB drives if you have to. There are 4TiB MicroSD cards now, so embed storage in employee badges that only keeps relevant records for patients they're actually caring for that day. That sort of thing just needs to be the cost of doing business with information that's that sensitive, because if it's all sitting on a network, someone somewhere sometime will inevitably screw something up. So long as it's okay to leak private information every few years as an externality, they will continue to deploy and run systems that drive their operational costs to the absolute bottom while treating any risks to your privacy as irrelevant.