The carriers sold “real-time location information to data aggregators, allowing this highly sensitive data to wind up in the hands of bail-bond companies, bounty hunters, and other shady actors,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.
“Smartphones are always with us, and as a result these devices know where we are at any given moment,” Rosenworcel said. Citing the sensitivity of geolocation data, she added, “In the wrong hands, it can provide those who wish to do us harm the ability to locate us with pinpoint accuracy.”
About Neuters:
This is an alternative frontend to Reuters. It is intented to be lightweight, fast and was heavily inspired by Nitter.
- No JavaScript or ads
- No tracking
- No cookies
- Lightweight (usually <10KiB vs 50MiB from Reuters)
- Dynamic Theming (respects system theme)
- You can install libredirect or this browser extension to automatically forwards all reuters links to this site.
Republicans of course voted against any fines at all:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/fcc-fines-big-three-carriers-196m-for-selling-users-real-time-location-data/
Now with a 3-2 democratic majority on fcc a lot is getting done. One of Biden’s nominees was stonewalled by the senate for years (ISPs launched a huge smear campaign against her, even the daily mail of all things went after her). Biden had to relent and finally nominated someone else who got approved late 2023, finally breaking the 2-2 deadlock that Republicans were using to block everything like this including net neutrality.