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| -Land of the Free |
| AT&T says it'll stop selling location data amid calls for federal investigation |
| 2019-01-11 |
| [Inquirer Philly.com] AT&T said Thursday that it will stop selling its customers' location data to third-party service providers after a report this week said the information was winding up in the wrong hands. The announcement follows sharp demands by federal lawmakers for an investigation into the alleged misuse of data, which came to light when Motherboard revealed a complex chain of unauthorized information sharing that ended with a bounty hunter successfully tracking down a reporter's device. AT&T had already suspended its data-sharing agreements with a number of so-called "location aggregators" last year in light of a congressional probe finding that some of Verizon's location data was being misused by prison officials to spy on innocent Americans. AT&T also said at the time that it would be maintaining those of its agreements that provided clear consumer benefits, such as location sharing for roadside assistance services. But AT&T's announcement Thursday goes much further, pledging to terminate all of the remaining deals it had - even the ones that it said were actively helpful. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #6 They'll just switch over to WeatherChannel or whichever one got busted for that last week. |
| Posted by: gorb 2019-01-11 14:11 |
| #5 Thinking the same thing Murcek. Middleware drop company washing the data. Noting nothing will change informing on their customers. |
| Posted by: Woodrow 2019-01-11 13:28 |
| #4 They're not ending the arrangement until March, to give "some" of the third time parties time to "transition," presumably to a new arrangement that is out of sight and off the books. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2019-01-11 07:47 |
| #3 "Abusing customers has always been our highest goal at AT&T. It's a tradition." |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2019-01-11 07:11 |
| #2 Well, they thought if they were giving it on demand, to the government, why shouldn't they be able to sell it too? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2019-01-11 06:16 |
| #1 "...We most emphatically have not done anything wrong, and we'll never do it again." Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2019-01-11 04:53 |