FCC Fines Wireless Carriers About $200 Million for Sharing Customer Data
By Ben Glickman
Federal regulators fined wireless carriers Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint nearly $200 million for sharing customer-location data without consent.
The Federal Communications Commission on Monday said that an investigation found the four carriers sold access to customers' location data to aggregators, who resold the data to third parties.
The FCC said that Verizon was fined $46.9 million, AT&T was fined $57.3 million, T-Mobile was fined $80.1 million and Sprint was fined $12.2 million.
The agency first proposed the fines in 2020 following an investigation. The FCC said at the time that the carriers had relied on assurances that location-based services providers would obtain consent from customers before using their information.
The Commission slightly reduced its proposed penalties for Verizon and T-Mobile after reviewing additional evidence, according to the forfeiture orders for each company.
The FCC also alleged that the carriers continued to operate their programs without establishing protections to ensure the third parties obtained consent from customers, even after being made aware of the unauthorized access to data.
Carriers must keep customer data private unless they have obtained explicit consent from users, the FCC said.
Write to Ben Glickman at ben.glickman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 29, 2024 14:40 ET (18:40 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.-
5 Stocks to Buy While They’re Trading at Big Discounts
-
Markets Brief: Tech Stocks Lead Ahead of Nvidia Earnings
-
How Anti-Obesity Drugs Are Innovating the Healthcare Market
-
What’s Happening In the Markets This Week
-
Why Immigration Has Boosted Job Gains and the Economy
-
What to Invest in During High Inflation
-
Never Mind Market Efficiency: Are the Markets Sensible?
-
Starbucks Stock Could Use a Pick-Me-Up After Big Selloff; Is it a Buy?
-
Should You Buy and Hold an Artificial Intelligence Portfolio?
-
3 Cheap and Dependable Dividend-Growth Stocks to Buy
-
The Best Bank Stocks to Buy
-
After Earnings, Is Roblox Stock a Buy, Sell, or Fairly Valued?
-
After Earnings, Is Lyft Stock a Buy, a Sell, or Fairly Valued?
-
8 Stock Picks in the Apparel Industry
-
Baidu Earnings: Advertising Weakness Offset by Continued Growth In Cloud Business
-
Going Into Earnings, Is Target Stock a Buy, a Sell, or Fairly Valued?