HN Reader

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.

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...

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.

Thanks court.

Opinion

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

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.

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

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?

Carriers have been selling this stuff forever. The only surprise is that they were arrogant enough to argue it was outright legal rather than hiding behind “user consent” fine print.

The bigger issue is that every telecom treats location data as an asset class. If you think a court ruling will make them suddenly respect privacy, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. They’ll just bury consent deeper in the UX until it looks indistinguishable from compliance.

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

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.

even with user consent, they should ban it period

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

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

Good.

Now apply it to Flock.