10 ms·

Court rejects Verizon claim that selling location data without consent is legal

659 points by nobody9999 1y ago

fn-mote 1y ago
I like this part: [denied because…] > Verizon had, and chose to forgo, the opportunity for a jury trial in federal court.
- petertodd 1y ago
  That was probably a sound legal strategy. Selling location data without consent is obviously unethical behavior that should be illegal. A jury is more likely to rule on the basis of that; with a judge maybe there's a chance that a technicality in the law leads to a ruling in their favor. Anyway, this practice should be criminalized with companies and their employees receiving criminal penalties like jail time.
  - kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
    It won't because the US government relies on third parties to funnel data into its panopticon as a constitutional side step.
  - thrwaway55 1y ago
    Replace employee with exec. An employee may need a job and can be coerced for reasons they don't control.
    - soulofmischief 1y ago
      That same position legitimizes basically all police brutality.
      - akoboldfrying 1y ago
        It doesn't legitimize all police brutality, only whatever amount of it is necessary to keep your job. And legitimising this is appropriate. The only other position -- requiring people to behave in a way that doesn't meet their basic needs for survival -- would be inappropriate. It is the responsibility of those in power to prevent society from degrading to a point where police are forced to be violent in order to keep their jobs.
        soulofmischief 1y ago
        No brutality is legitimate. First of all, if police get this pass, then so do the street criminals they deal with. And then you just have a never-ending conflict since both sides get moral passes to put themselves above the greater good. If you study game theory such as the prisoner's dilemma, you'll understand that these are perverse incentives where actors are certainly "rational" given their constraints, but the overall system is harmed. In a feedback loop such as society, this can have a runaway effect until eventual societal collapse. > legitimising this is appropriate For who? Who decides this? > It is the responsibility of those in power to prevent society from degrading to a point where police are forced to be violent in order to keep their jobs. Maybe you now understand why this is circular logic. If those in power are just doing what they "have to do" in order to keep their job and survive, and civilians do what they "have to do", and police do what they "have to do", the buck gets passed to no one. Every single culpable party gets to say it's not their fault or their responsibility to introduce structural change through personal sacrifice.
    - Frieren 1y ago
      If a doctor fucks up is liable for bad practice. If an architect fucks up is liable for bad practice. CEOs, CTOs, etc. of organizations with the budged of small countries can be stupid, unknowledgeable and reckless and there are no consequences (unless it affects shareholders money). Executives should be held legally accountable of the damage that their companies do. Accountability is required for a civilized society. When the people with the most power do not need to follow any rule we get into anarchy and chaos. Just watch the news to see that it is already happening.
      - zelphirkalt 1y ago
        What makes this more infuriating is that they always point to their additional responsibilities, when it comes to pay/salary. Oh yes, they need to manage sooo much responsibility! But when these things happen, no one seems to be taking the responsibility. Very strange. Almost as if some people only want the upsides of "responsibility".
        baranul 1y ago
        Also known as "have your cake and eat it too".
        zelphirkalt 1y ago
        Ha, yes! I was actually thinking about using that exact phrasing, but then wasn't 100% sure, whether that is basically the definition of that phrase. Thanks for confirming.
    - petertodd 1y ago
      "Just following orders" is not a valid excuse. Besides, one reason why they can be coerced is because these actions aren't clearly illegal. If they are, the employee can just report what they're being asked to do to the police. Workplace safety has been dramatically improved in western countries simply by making many unsafe practices illegal and creating entities to report illegal work to. While this did require criminal charges for some managers and employees, because safety has improved so much, they're really not that common. I remember when I had workplace safety training as a poorly paid university lab monitor. They made clear that I had potential criminal legal liability if I allowed egregiously unsafe things to happen. So they didn't.
  - baranul 1y ago
    There are also various ways that big companies have to influence judges or increase the odds of getting favorable ones, not even mentioning outright corruption, where quickly and randomly selected jurors are harder to touch.
- slowhadoken 1y ago
  I feel like a cop looking at this company’s behavior. “If you’re not guilty why are you acting guilty, Verizon?”
slowhadoken 1y ago
Pretty soon you’re going to need insurance for your paycheck. When people are poorest that’s when corporate types turn the screws lmfao smh
sidcool 1y ago
Thanks court.
SilverElfin 1y ago
Great. Now jail the executives, pierce the veil, seize their assets.
Workaccount2 1y ago
Good. Now apply it to Flock.
jimmySixDOF 1y ago
Will this protection extend to automobile companies ? Mobile Apps ? Mobile OSs ? I have lost track of the number of leakage points for location data into the tarball of databrokers.
- comex 1y ago
  Nope. The court is applying an old law that specifically applies to carriers providing "telecommunications services", no one else. (Incidentally, even the term "telecommunications service" only encompasses voice call service, not mobile data or SMS. The FCC tried to reclassify Internet access as a telecommunications service during the Obama and Biden administrations, in order to get authority to impose net neutrality rules, but it was ultimately overturned in court.)
  - m463 1y ago
    > "telecommunications service" only encompasses voice call service I wonder if those helpful text messages from some company can locate you? I've heard that tow truck companies can find your location because it is somewhat like and emergency. by the way, verizon is just plain evil. I remember years ago when they would add identifying cookies to all web requests outgoing from your phone to identify your specific handset. (search "verizon supercookie")
    - staplers 1y ago
      I've heard that tow truck companies can find your location because it is somewhat like and emergency. Anyone can find your location if they pay one of the data brokers who resell the info the cell carrier sells. Source: https://www.fogdatascience.com/ https://www.fogdatascience.com/
  - rsingel 1y ago
    Close but the Obama 2015 reclassification was actually upheld. Law of the land from 2015 to 2018. Ajit Pai undid it, a court said reverting was fine because DNS. Biden FCC took forever to reclassify and then lost in a Trumpy circuit court. Advocates didn't appeal largely because the courts are so screwed now and don't want an awful Supreme Court ruling. But it's very clear for the law that internet communications actually are telecom, and I suspect we'll see this revisited in the future
1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
Opinion https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca2.3faa6ebe-fa32-ef11-a296-001dd804fa85/gov.uscourts.ca2.3faa6ebe-fa32-ef11-a296-001dd804fa85.106.1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca2.3fa...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
monksy 1y ago
Assuming they'll lose this, they'll probably move to coercing the selling of your location data as "part of doing business with them." Sigh.
electric_muse 1y ago
[flagged]
- Terr_ 1y ago
  As a fun but impractical thought-experiment, imagine the differences in a world with a rule like: "If you voluntarily share data about a customer which becomes instrumental in crime committed against that customer, the company is considered an accomplice to the crime."
- rickdeckard 1y ago
  It's not just telecom, the usage data of a product is naturally an asset of every company. It's just a matter whether this data contains PI (=Personal Information) or (!) PII (=Personally Identifiable Information --> Information that can be combined with other data to create PI). The EU GDPR (here mostly known for consent-popups on websites it seems) allows companies to keep this kind of data but requires very strict governance and user-consent if the data contains PI or PII. And everyone who worked in a larger company at the time of enforcement saw the wonders it did. Suddenly whole departments reviewed the amount of data they collect, and found there was a huge portion of telemetry data that was actually NOT needed to preserve this asset-value (Names, Addresses, Serial numbers, etc...)
tonyhart7 1y ago
even with user consent, they should ban it period
malux85 1y ago
How much did they make selling the data? If it's greater than the fine, and they suffer no other consequences (e.g. nobody goes to jail) then the fine is just cost-of-business. The fine must be greater than what they made, AND some executives or management needs to be held responsible - at least fired. Otherwise it will just keep happening.
- rickdeckard 1y ago
  Even better, the fine should be a percentage of the whole annual company revenue. So the action cannot be evaluated with an isolated break-even calculation.
- CommenterPerson 1y ago
  Exactly. If a shoplifter only paid a small percentage for stolen goods it would become a great career same as surveillance capitalism.
cwmoore 1y ago
Retroactively assign all future data value to...the next president?
- rickdeckard 1y ago
  Or transfer to the "Archive of the presidency" upon retirement of the current president, so it can be used to finance e.g. jet fuel... /s
  - cwmoore 1y ago
    Why not use olive oil instead?
autoexec 1y ago
The courts have decided that Verizon selling location data without consent is illegal but I'd be willing to bet that the courts haven't decided that it should be unprofitable. I'd be surprised if Verizon and the other companies haven't made more than enough money by breaking the law back in 2018 to rake in a nice profit even after the fines they're trying to weasel out of paying now. I have no doubt that they're still selling our data one way or another anyway. We know for a fact that they've never stopped selling data to to law enforcement, they just require a rubber stamped court order/subpoena to do it.
bryanrasmussen 1y ago
what are the ways you can poison or fake your location data, like if Verizon in response to this decides to offer a cheaper plan for sharing your location data?
- codeduck 1y ago
  gps spoofer perhaps?
  - silisili 1y ago
    It's much more likely they're selling tower triangulation data, but let me know if that theory is wrong.
bilekas 1y ago
Verizon disputed this not because the fine was in ANY way impactful, but because they wanted to push to see if they could legally do it without any repercussions. In their last quarter alone they made over 9k million USD, if I'm reading it right [0]. > Verizon chose to pay fine, giving up right to jury trial 40Million fine is a cost of doing business, but my question is if people's data was sold without consent, why is a class action not taken against them? Where is the right of the injured party here ? [0 ]https://www.verizon.com/about/investors/quarterly-reports/2q-2025-earnings-conference-call-webcast https://www.verizon.com/about/investors/quarterly-reports/2q...
- 0xEF 1y ago
  When the punishment for the crime is a fine, it's just a subscription service that allows the wealthy to break rules, trust and expectations. But, let's push that fine up to $40 billion US (with a b) and see what happens. If we need to go harder, let's add some enforceability, too. Maybe they have 1 year to pay it or lose the right to do business in the US (or whatever country) for 12 months? Get creative with the pain, but cause it none the less. Walk softly, but carry a big stick.
  - rickdeckard 1y ago
    > But, let's push that fine up to $40 billion US (with a b) and see what happens. Or a percentage of the global revenue. That's basically the EU's GDPR directive. Worked wonders. US should try that too once it's back on a citizen-friendly path again...
    - petcat 1y ago
      > Or a percentage of the global revenue. That's basically the EU's GDPR directive. > Worked wonders. Unfortunately the GDPR is mostly toothless considering that the fines against Meta and Amazon were basically nothing. Certainly nothing close to a "percentage of global revenue". Honestly, the whole thing seems aimed at just shaking down American tech companies to try to collect some additional revenue to keep funding the EU bureaucracy. The system only exists to preserve itself.
GJim 1y ago
So, when will 'murka wake up and protect its people with real data privacy laws like (or even better than) the GDPR?
- woadwarrior01 1y ago
  The grass is always greener on the other side. I live in the EU and GDPR isn't much better. All it requires is "informed consent" (i.e a click or a tap on a button) from the "data subject" and people can evade privacy with impunity. The only side effect is that those of us on this side of the pond, get ugly cookie banners.
  - GJim 1y ago
    > All it requires is "informed consent" (i.e a click or a tap on a button) from the "data subject" Correct. Clear, opt-in informed consent to use personal data is the fundamental principle of the GDPR. As it should be. I'm puzzled why you think this is a negative. > and people can evade privacy with impunity. Certainly not. The GDPR does not permit data trawling or allowing data controllers to do what they like with your personal data once they have it. It must only be used for the purpose it was requested for. > ugly cookie banners Once again, there is no requirement for 'cookie banners'. You are free to use whatever cookies you want to run your site. HOWEVER, if you are using those cookies to track me (advertisers take a bow) then you need my clear, opt-in informed consent to do so. And so you should! I continue to be astounded at the ignorance some people have of such a vital privacy law; one that is fundamental to modern data use and respect for the customer.
    - woadwarrior01 1y ago
      > Certainly not. The GDPR does not permit data trawling or allowing data controllers to do what they like with your personal data once they have it. It must only be used for the purpose it was requested for. You might want to read the privacy policies of some of the European fintech and ad-tech companies (nb: I've worked at some of them). They cast a wide blanket over all purposes. At best, the GDPR only introduces a minor indirection, the problem of hoodwinking the "data subject" into clicking the accept button. At worst, it gives them false sense of privacy, where there isn't much.
taneq 1y ago
Oooh ooh now to Mastercard and your credit card transaction records!
eagerpace 1y ago
Are there any carriers that don’t do this?
- Sandbag5802 1y ago
  Funny that you say that, I just discovered this phone service called Cape - https://www.cape.co/ https://www.cape.co/ It was co-founded by John Doyle who led Palantir’s national security business before starting this company. I think this comment best describes why Cape was started in the first place: "Cape is not disclosing valuation, but it’s notable that the funding is coming at a time when startups building military, defense, and security services are getting increased focus and priority at a time when geopolitics are shifting. While many of those shifts are playing out at a much higher level involving wars, espionage against officers and officials, and major contacts between outsized industrial entities, Cape’s products and its growth are one of the rare examples of how some of that evolution is playing out at a consumer level" source - https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/19/cape-opens-99-month-beta-of-its-privacy-first-mobile-plan-inks-proton-deal-raises-30m/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/19/cape-opens-99-month-beta-o... Ultimately, I still want to read up on them before considering making the switch.
  - bsstoner 1y ago
    Hi -- I'm Head of Product at Cape (previously led product at DuckDuckGo). We are indeed trying to provide an alternative to all the data collection and sharing major carriers do in the US. Happy to answer any questions people have about Cape.
QuantumNoodle 1y ago
How much have they profited from selling this vs how much the fine was? Fines these days appear as just a cost of doing business.
1oooqooq 1y ago
you have to constantly advertise your location to get cell service (by design, didn't have to be so) stores scan your phone radio and also aggregate this data to map your store visit. this was all done with credit cards in the 50s and then outlawed, hence: reward programs. so, can't wait for Verizon to offer a cell coverage reward program that is nothing but a waiver to your data, just like reward programs from credit cards of yore.
xhkkffbf 1y ago
This may be the wrong time to ask this, but does anyone know where I can buy some location data? I don't want to ask for consent because I want the data (and the analysis) to be as general as possible. That being said, I have a significant amount of flexibility. The data can be completely anonymized by stripping out the names, addresses etc. The location can be blurred by some radius that's roughly the size of the local census blocks groups. In other words, the location should be random enough to mix together 500-3000 people. The time can also be blurred by a radius of about a week or so. Options like differential privacy are encouraged. The goal is not to track individuals, just get a rough measure of where they spend their time. First, does anyone think this is a bad or dangerous set of data? Second, if not, can anyone point me to some data brokers?
- delecti 1y ago
  Assuming this isn't a joke, find one of the services you can pay to get your data deleted from brokers, and then look at which brokers they delete data from. DeleteMe and Incogni both have lists. https://blog.incogni.com/opt-out-guides/ https://blog.incogni.com/opt-out-guides/ and https://joindeleteme.com/sites-we-remove-from/ https://joindeleteme.com/sites-we-remove-from/
  - xhkkffbf 1y ago
    No. It's not a joke. There are many good research projects that we can do that don't need to compromise people's privacy. So we need to find a way to do it in a way that generates useful insights without making someone feel like the target of a stalker.
1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
Opinion in Sprint and T-Mobile v FCC https://ia801804.us.archive.org/26/items/gov.uscourts.cadc.41085/gov.uscourts.cadc.41085.01208766633.0.pdf https://ia801804.us.archive.org/26/items/gov.uscourts.cadc.4...
xnx 1y ago
Too bad the US spent so much time prosecuting Google, which never sells personal tracking information, instead of Verizon Which sells everyone's data and is also a ISP monopoly in many places.

659 points by nobody9999 1y ago

I like this part: [denied because…] > Verizon had, and chose to forgo, the opportunity for a jury trial in federal court.

petertodd 1y ago
That was probably a sound legal strategy. Selling location data without consent is obviously unethical behavior that should be illegal. A jury is more likely to rule on the basis of that; with a judge maybe there's a chance that a technicality in the law leads to a ruling in their favor. Anyway, this practice should be criminalized with companies and their employees receiving criminal penalties like jail time.
- kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
  It won't because the US government relies on third parties to funnel data into its panopticon as a constitutional side step.
- thrwaway55 1y ago
  Replace employee with exec. An employee may need a job and can be coerced for reasons they don't control.
  - soulofmischief 1y ago
    That same position legitimizes basically all police brutality.
    - akoboldfrying 1y ago
      It doesn't legitimize all police brutality, only whatever amount of it is necessary to keep your job. And legitimising this is appropriate. The only other position -- requiring people to behave in a way that doesn't meet their basic needs for survival -- would be inappropriate. It is the responsibility of those in power to prevent society from degrading to a point where police are forced to be violent in order to keep their jobs.
      - soulofmischief 1y ago
        No brutality is legitimate. First of all, if police get this pass, then so do the street criminals they deal with. And then you just have a never-ending conflict since both sides get moral passes to put themselves above the greater good. If you study game theory such as the prisoner's dilemma, you'll understand that these are perverse incentives where actors are certainly "rational" given their constraints, but the overall system is harmed. In a feedback loop such as society, this can have a runaway effect until eventual societal collapse. > legitimising this is appropriate For who? Who decides this? > It is the responsibility of those in power to prevent society from degrading to a point where police are forced to be violent in order to keep their jobs. Maybe you now understand why this is circular logic. If those in power are just doing what they "have to do" in order to keep their job and survive, and civilians do what they "have to do", and police do what they "have to do", the buck gets passed to no one. Every single culpable party gets to say it's not their fault or their responsibility to introduce structural change through personal sacrifice.
  - Frieren 1y ago
    If a doctor fucks up is liable for bad practice. If an architect fucks up is liable for bad practice. CEOs, CTOs, etc. of organizations with the budged of small countries can be stupid, unknowledgeable and reckless and there are no consequences (unless it affects shareholders money). Executives should be held legally accountable of the damage that their companies do. Accountability is required for a civilized society. When the people with the most power do not need to follow any rule we get into anarchy and chaos. Just watch the news to see that it is already happening.
    - zelphirkalt 1y ago
      What makes this more infuriating is that they always point to their additional responsibilities, when it comes to pay/salary. Oh yes, they need to manage sooo much responsibility! But when these things happen, no one seems to be taking the responsibility. Very strange. Almost as if some people only want the upsides of "responsibility".
      - baranul 1y ago
        Also known as "have your cake and eat it too".
        zelphirkalt 1y ago
        Ha, yes! I was actually thinking about using that exact phrasing, but then wasn't 100% sure, whether that is basically the definition of that phrase. Thanks for confirming.
  - petertodd 1y ago
    "Just following orders" is not a valid excuse. Besides, one reason why they can be coerced is because these actions aren't clearly illegal. If they are, the employee can just report what they're being asked to do to the police. Workplace safety has been dramatically improved in western countries simply by making many unsafe practices illegal and creating entities to report illegal work to. While this did require criminal charges for some managers and employees, because safety has improved so much, they're really not that common. I remember when I had workplace safety training as a poorly paid university lab monitor. They made clear that I had potential criminal legal liability if I allowed egregiously unsafe things to happen. So they didn't.
- baranul 1y ago
  There are also various ways that big companies have to influence judges or increase the odds of getting favorable ones, not even mentioning outright corruption, where quickly and randomly selected jurors are harder to touch.
slowhadoken 1y ago
I feel like a cop looking at this company’s behavior. “If you’re not guilty why are you acting guilty, Verizon?”

slowhadoken 1y ago

Pretty soon you’re going to need insurance for your paycheck. When people are poorest that’s when corporate types turn the screws lmfao smh

sidcool 1y ago

Thanks court.

SilverElfin 1y ago

Great. Now jail the executives, pierce the veil, seize their assets.

Workaccount2 1y ago

Good. Now apply it to Flock.

jimmySixDOF 1y ago

Will this protection extend to automobile companies ? Mobile Apps ? Mobile OSs ? I have lost track of the number of leakage points for location data into the tarball of databrokers.

comex 1y ago
Nope. The court is applying an old law that specifically applies to carriers providing "telecommunications services", no one else. (Incidentally, even the term "telecommunications service" only encompasses voice call service, not mobile data or SMS. The FCC tried to reclassify Internet access as a telecommunications service during the Obama and Biden administrations, in order to get authority to impose net neutrality rules, but it was ultimately overturned in court.)
- m463 1y ago
  > "telecommunications service" only encompasses voice call service I wonder if those helpful text messages from some company can locate you? I've heard that tow truck companies can find your location because it is somewhat like and emergency. by the way, verizon is just plain evil. I remember years ago when they would add identifying cookies to all web requests outgoing from your phone to identify your specific handset. (search "verizon supercookie")
  - staplers 1y ago
    I've heard that tow truck companies can find your location because it is somewhat like and emergency. Anyone can find your location if they pay one of the data brokers who resell the info the cell carrier sells. Source: https://www.fogdatascience.com/ https://www.fogdatascience.com/
- rsingel 1y ago
  Close but the Obama 2015 reclassification was actually upheld. Law of the land from 2015 to 2018. Ajit Pai undid it, a court said reverting was fine because DNS. Biden FCC took forever to reclassify and then lost in a Trumpy circuit court. Advocates didn't appeal largely because the courts are so screwed now and don't want an awful Supreme Court ruling. But it's very clear for the law that internet communications actually are telecom, and I suspect we'll see this revisited in the future

1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago

Opinion https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca2.3faa6ebe-fa32-ef11-a296-001dd804fa85/gov.uscourts.ca2.3faa6ebe-fa32-ef11-a296-001dd804fa85.106.1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca2.3fa...

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

monksy 1y ago

Assuming they'll lose this, they'll probably move to coercing the selling of your location data as "part of doing business with them." Sigh.

electric_muse 1y ago

[flagged]

Terr_ 1y ago
As a fun but impractical thought-experiment, imagine the differences in a world with a rule like: "If you voluntarily share data about a customer which becomes instrumental in crime committed against that customer, the company is considered an accomplice to the crime."
rickdeckard 1y ago
It's not just telecom, the usage data of a product is naturally an asset of every company. It's just a matter whether this data contains PI (=Personal Information) or (!) PII (=Personally Identifiable Information --> Information that can be combined with other data to create PI). The EU GDPR (here mostly known for consent-popups on websites it seems) allows companies to keep this kind of data but requires very strict governance and user-consent if the data contains PI or PII. And everyone who worked in a larger company at the time of enforcement saw the wonders it did. Suddenly whole departments reviewed the amount of data they collect, and found there was a huge portion of telemetry data that was actually NOT needed to preserve this asset-value (Names, Addresses, Serial numbers, etc...)

tonyhart7 1y ago

even with user consent, they should ban it period

malux85 1y ago

How much did they make selling the data? If it's greater than the fine, and they suffer no other consequences (e.g. nobody goes to jail) then the fine is just cost-of-business. The fine must be greater than what they made, AND some executives or management needs to be held responsible - at least fired. Otherwise it will just keep happening.

rickdeckard 1y ago
Even better, the fine should be a percentage of the whole annual company revenue. So the action cannot be evaluated with an isolated break-even calculation.
CommenterPerson 1y ago
Exactly. If a shoplifter only paid a small percentage for stolen goods it would become a great career same as surveillance capitalism.

cwmoore 1y ago

Retroactively assign all future data value to...the next president?

rickdeckard 1y ago
Or transfer to the "Archive of the presidency" upon retirement of the current president, so it can be used to finance e.g. jet fuel... /s
- cwmoore 1y ago
  Why not use olive oil instead?

autoexec 1y ago

The courts have decided that Verizon selling location data without consent is illegal but I'd be willing to bet that the courts haven't decided that it should be unprofitable. I'd be surprised if Verizon and the other companies haven't made more than enough money by breaking the law back in 2018 to rake in a nice profit even after the fines they're trying to weasel out of paying now. I have no doubt that they're still selling our data one way or another anyway. We know for a fact that they've never stopped selling data to to law enforcement, they just require a rubber stamped court order/subpoena to do it.

bryanrasmussen 1y ago

what are the ways you can poison or fake your location data, like if Verizon in response to this decides to offer a cheaper plan for sharing your location data?

codeduck 1y ago
gps spoofer perhaps?
- silisili 1y ago
  It's much more likely they're selling tower triangulation data, but let me know if that theory is wrong.

bilekas 1y ago

Verizon disputed this not because the fine was in ANY way impactful, but because they wanted to push to see if they could legally do it without any repercussions. In their last quarter alone they made over 9k million USD, if I'm reading it right [0]. > Verizon chose to pay fine, giving up right to jury trial 40Million fine is a cost of doing business, but my question is if people's data was sold without consent, why is a class action not taken against them? Where is the right of the injured party here ? [0 ]https://www.verizon.com/about/investors/quarterly-reports/2q-2025-earnings-conference-call-webcast https://www.verizon.com/about/investors/quarterly-reports/2q...

0xEF 1y ago
When the punishment for the crime is a fine, it's just a subscription service that allows the wealthy to break rules, trust and expectations. But, let's push that fine up to $40 billion US (with a b) and see what happens. If we need to go harder, let's add some enforceability, too. Maybe they have 1 year to pay it or lose the right to do business in the US (or whatever country) for 12 months? Get creative with the pain, but cause it none the less. Walk softly, but carry a big stick.
- rickdeckard 1y ago
  > But, let's push that fine up to $40 billion US (with a b) and see what happens. Or a percentage of the global revenue. That's basically the EU's GDPR directive. Worked wonders. US should try that too once it's back on a citizen-friendly path again...
  - petcat 1y ago
    > Or a percentage of the global revenue. That's basically the EU's GDPR directive. > Worked wonders. Unfortunately the GDPR is mostly toothless considering that the fines against Meta and Amazon were basically nothing. Certainly nothing close to a "percentage of global revenue". Honestly, the whole thing seems aimed at just shaking down American tech companies to try to collect some additional revenue to keep funding the EU bureaucracy. The system only exists to preserve itself.

GJim 1y ago

So, when will 'murka wake up and protect its people with real data privacy laws like (or even better than) the GDPR?

woadwarrior01 1y ago
The grass is always greener on the other side. I live in the EU and GDPR isn't much better. All it requires is "informed consent" (i.e a click or a tap on a button) from the "data subject" and people can evade privacy with impunity. The only side effect is that those of us on this side of the pond, get ugly cookie banners.
- GJim 1y ago
  > All it requires is "informed consent" (i.e a click or a tap on a button) from the "data subject" Correct. Clear, opt-in informed consent to use personal data is the fundamental principle of the GDPR. As it should be. I'm puzzled why you think this is a negative. > and people can evade privacy with impunity. Certainly not. The GDPR does not permit data trawling or allowing data controllers to do what they like with your personal data once they have it. It must only be used for the purpose it was requested for. > ugly cookie banners Once again, there is no requirement for 'cookie banners'. You are free to use whatever cookies you want to run your site. HOWEVER, if you are using those cookies to track me (advertisers take a bow) then you need my clear, opt-in informed consent to do so. And so you should! I continue to be astounded at the ignorance some people have of such a vital privacy law; one that is fundamental to modern data use and respect for the customer.
  - woadwarrior01 1y ago
    > Certainly not. The GDPR does not permit data trawling or allowing data controllers to do what they like with your personal data once they have it. It must only be used for the purpose it was requested for. You might want to read the privacy policies of some of the European fintech and ad-tech companies (nb: I've worked at some of them). They cast a wide blanket over all purposes. At best, the GDPR only introduces a minor indirection, the problem of hoodwinking the "data subject" into clicking the accept button. At worst, it gives them false sense of privacy, where there isn't much.

taneq 1y ago

Oooh ooh now to Mastercard and your credit card transaction records!

eagerpace 1y ago

Are there any carriers that don’t do this?

Sandbag5802 1y ago
Funny that you say that, I just discovered this phone service called Cape - https://www.cape.co/ https://www.cape.co/ It was co-founded by John Doyle who led Palantir’s national security business before starting this company. I think this comment best describes why Cape was started in the first place: "Cape is not disclosing valuation, but it’s notable that the funding is coming at a time when startups building military, defense, and security services are getting increased focus and priority at a time when geopolitics are shifting. While many of those shifts are playing out at a much higher level involving wars, espionage against officers and officials, and major contacts between outsized industrial entities, Cape’s products and its growth are one of the rare examples of how some of that evolution is playing out at a consumer level" source - https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/19/cape-opens-99-month-beta-of-its-privacy-first-mobile-plan-inks-proton-deal-raises-30m/ https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/19/cape-opens-99-month-beta-o... Ultimately, I still want to read up on them before considering making the switch.
- bsstoner 1y ago
  Hi -- I'm Head of Product at Cape (previously led product at DuckDuckGo). We are indeed trying to provide an alternative to all the data collection and sharing major carriers do in the US. Happy to answer any questions people have about Cape.

QuantumNoodle 1y ago

How much have they profited from selling this vs how much the fine was? Fines these days appear as just a cost of doing business.

1oooqooq 1y ago

you have to constantly advertise your location to get cell service (by design, didn't have to be so) stores scan your phone radio and also aggregate this data to map your store visit. this was all done with credit cards in the 50s and then outlawed, hence: reward programs. so, can't wait for Verizon to offer a cell coverage reward program that is nothing but a waiver to your data, just like reward programs from credit cards of yore.

xhkkffbf 1y ago

This may be the wrong time to ask this, but does anyone know where I can buy some location data? I don't want to ask for consent because I want the data (and the analysis) to be as general as possible. That being said, I have a significant amount of flexibility. The data can be completely anonymized by stripping out the names, addresses etc. The location can be blurred by some radius that's roughly the size of the local census blocks groups. In other words, the location should be random enough to mix together 500-3000 people. The time can also be blurred by a radius of about a week or so. Options like differential privacy are encouraged. The goal is not to track individuals, just get a rough measure of where they spend their time. First, does anyone think this is a bad or dangerous set of data? Second, if not, can anyone point me to some data brokers?

delecti 1y ago
Assuming this isn't a joke, find one of the services you can pay to get your data deleted from brokers, and then look at which brokers they delete data from. DeleteMe and Incogni both have lists. https://blog.incogni.com/opt-out-guides/ https://blog.incogni.com/opt-out-guides/ and https://joindeleteme.com/sites-we-remove-from/ https://joindeleteme.com/sites-we-remove-from/
- xhkkffbf 1y ago
  No. It's not a joke. There are many good research projects that we can do that don't need to compromise people's privacy. So we need to find a way to do it in a way that generates useful insights without making someone feel like the target of a stalker.

1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago

Opinion in Sprint and T-Mobile v FCC https://ia801804.us.archive.org/26/items/gov.uscourts.cadc.41085/gov.uscourts.cadc.41085.01208766633.0.pdf https://ia801804.us.archive.org/26/items/gov.uscourts.cadc.4...

xnx 1y ago

Too bad the US spent so much time prosecuting Google, which never sells personal tracking information, instead of Verizon Which sells everyone's data and is also a ISP monopoly in many places.