HN Reader

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...

I like this part:

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

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.

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?

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.

Opinion

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca2.3fa...

Thanks court.

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.

Opinion in Sprint and T-Mobile v FCC

https://ia801804.us.archive.org/26/items/gov.uscourts.cadc.4...

even with user consent, they should ban it period

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.

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

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.

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?

Are there any carriers that don’t do this?

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.

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.

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

Good.

Now apply it to Flock.

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

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

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