Cell Carriers Agree – AGAIN – To Stop Selling Your Location Data – HONEST!

Motherboard was able to buy real time location data from a broker for a T-Mobile phone for $300.  This is not illegal.

The food chain for location data is very complicated.

In this case, T-Mobile sold the data to data aggregator Zumigo.

Zumigo sold it to Microbilt.

Microbilt sold it to a bounty hunter.

Who sold it to a “source”.

Who sold it to Motherboard.

Ajit Pai, who, as the Chairman of the FCC has not been very consumer friendly, “declined” a request for an emergency briefing to Congress during the Trump Shutdown.

While I am not terribly impressed by that, the reality is that the FCC won’t take any action during the shutdown any way.  Still, there is no reason not to brief Congress other than the Pai is a Republican and he was asked to testify by the Democrats.

AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile continue to sell data even though they have promised to stop selling data multiple times.

Now they are saying that they pinky-promise that they will really, really stop selling your location data.

One of the challenges is that there are some legitimate services, such as roadside assistance, that need the data and need to make other accommodations.

One source is many of those applications that people love to install.  One recent study found that a given app might collect your location up to 14,000 times a day (10 times a minute).

Users have to grant permission for apps to use your location, but as we saw with the City of LA lawsuit against The Weather Channel, many times apps ask for your permission to use your location but don’t clearly tell you what they are using it for or who they are selling it to.

The problem for people that really want your data is that for any given user, they don’t know what apps you have installed or which apps you have given location permission, so their best answer is to buy your location info from a data aggregator if they can’t get it from the cell companies.  

You can and should turn off location services when you don’t need it and review which apps you have given location permissions to see if you still want those apps to have that capability.

Don’t hold your breath.  Source: Bleeping Computer.

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