Location data for sale... "FCC can't punish us!"

[Maxmars]

I opted to put this in New World Order because ultimately... one vital component of such a world is total surveillance...

Total surveillance has no possible success in a social order which values human dignity.  So human dignity must be chipped away, piece by piece, in such a manner as to go unnoticed.

The components of human dignity are debatable, but among them I propose is "privacy."

How better to erase privacy as a detractor of total surveillance as to render it 'negotiable.'

Enter Big Tech... and the idea of monetizing data pertaining to 'users' identity.  Making it 'sellable,' giving it 'exchange value.'  Purchasing habits, browsing interests, associated user contacts, location data... all for sale... in as many ways, and as many times as possible.  Combining them, filtering them, refining them for a 'customer'...

Here is a tiny part of the story I propose...

Your location data...

From ArsTechnica: Verizon, AT&T tell courts: FCC can’t punish us for selling user location data

Backstory: Among the exploits of the FCC (Federal Communication Commission) in the recent past, was a resolution of the committee which set to impose a penalty (fine) for several large ISPs who had embarked on selling location data of otherwise oblivious users (meaning all of them.)  It had been done so egregiously and with such rapidity that the "fine per instance" became 'game changing' in magnitude.

Enter the industry lawyers who say 1) "The FCC has no such power to fine us," and 2) "The FCC action does not 'resolve' the issue; therefore it should be rescinded."

I will spare you my verbose take down of this strategy, which I believe only offers an opportunity for the FCC to "back off."  If you follow such things, it is a fascinating play which will likely end in your location information being "theirs to sell if they want to."  I have little faith in the already captured FCC to effect this change, and propose further that this was a quasi-political stunt charge... meant to intimidate "someone," and not remedy the abuse of our information... our government has shown very little interest protecting our personal data.

Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are continuing their fight against fines for selling user location data, with two of the big three carriers submitting new court briefs arguing that the Federal Communications Commission can't punish them.

A Verizon brief filed on November 4 and an AT&T brief on November 1 contest the legal basis for the FCC fines issued in April 2024. T-Mobile also sued the FCC, but briefs haven't been filed yet in that case.

"Verizon's petition for review stems from the multiple and significant errors that the FCC, in purporting to enforce statutory consumer data privacy provisions, made in overstepping its authority," Verizon wrote. "The FCC's Forfeiture Order violated both the Communications Act and the Constitution, while failing to benefit the consumers it purported to protect."

Verizon and AT&T both said the fines violate their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial, and that the location data doesn't fall under the law cited by the FCC. Verizon appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, while AT&T appealed in the 5th Circuit and T-Mobile appealed in the DC Circuit.

The fines are $80.1 million for T-Mobile, $57.3 million for AT&T, $46.9 million for Verizon, and $12.2 million for T-Mobile subsidiary Sprint. The penalties relate to the 2018 revelation of real-time location data being shared. The FCC proposed the fines in 2020, when the commission had a Republican majority, and the fines were finalized under the current Democratic majority.

Ultimately it only definitively demonstrates that the industry itself refuses the idea that "not selling user data" is a benefit to the consumer.

[jaded]

Corporations will monitize everything possible until the revenue stream dries up or they're forced to hit a "hard stop". 

Location data is more problematic than just being a invasion of privacy. Just spitballing but I can easily see how it being sold on the dark web endangers victims of domestic abuse, makes specific murders possible (locate your target for a price) plus more.

Since our phones have more back doors than holes in Swiss cheese you know location information is a convenient tool for 3 letter agencies. I'm not going to rag on the police since I'm all for crime solving & Location info is a necessary tool for that. It's also not a stretch to consider the FCC got lobbied by communication companies to originally write a weak law to hedge their bets.

On the other hand if anyone is tracking my locations they are now bored beyond belief or they've already had a lobotomy. My moves are like watching Pong. Endlessly.
 

[Maxmars]

Corporations will monitize everything possible until the revenue stream dries up or they're forced to hit a "hard stop". 

Location data is more problematic than just being a invasion of privacy. Just spitballing but I can easily see how it being sold on the dark web endangers victims of domestic abuse, makes specific murders possible (locate your target for a price) plus more.

Since our phones have more back doors than holes in Swiss cheese you know location information is a convenient tool for 3 letter agencies. I'm not going to rag on the police since I'm all for crime solving & Location info is a necessary tool for that. It's also not a stretch to consider the FCC got lobbied by communication companies to originally write a weak law to hedge their bets.

On the other hand if anyone is tracking my locations they are now bored beyond belief or they've already had a lobotomy. My moves are like watching Pong. Endlessly.
 

I really have no worries about personal safety attached to the sale of my data... although there's no denying that it could be used for nefarious and otherwise bad intent.

What bothers me is systematically excluding the actual pertinent "object" of the data... you.  If data about you or me has 'value' why is that value "taken for use" by a party that contractually serves us?  Is there no remunerations due?  Where else other than slavery does that ever occur in the human world?  And why is it that "we" have no say in the matter?  These fundamental objections cannot be ignored although the lords of commerce seem to think it "naturally so."

Perhaps the FCC's stunt at least brought to light just how much money they are 'shifting' in the market... having done nothing more than outright stealing it from us.

I think that's the legal angle upon which the challenge should be made.   Too bad no one really has "jurisdiction."

[Quantum12]

So here is data from today from my IPhone. If I have this, Verizon has this too!

[UltraBudgie]

I really have nothing to add to this discussion except this:




Realism tastes too much like unsavoury cynicism. Here's the New York Times article from 2018 that prompted this particular incident:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/techn...ement.html



Edit: Oh and to clarify that little dialog is not what I'm telling anyone, particularly, but its what I feel like is being drummed into our heads until we conform or die and make room for newer more recently brainwashed generations.

[ArMaP]

Location data is one of the things that are considered "personal data" under the GDPR, because it allows the identification of the data subject and the GDPR applies to "identifiable natural persons".

The US has legal ties with the EU that extend the EU's GDPR to the US, so any EU citizen is protected by the GDPR also under US law, so if an EU citizen finds their data being used without their consent they can make an official complaint.

But the problem here is the consent, as most people accept any request they see on a web page or phone app without reading them, so they cannot complain about the consequences of their own actions or inactions.

[Quantum12]

Location data is one of the things that are considered "personal data" under the GDPR, because it allows the identification of the data subject and the GDPR applies to "identifiable natural persons".

The US has legal ties with the EU that extend the EU's GDPR to the US, so any EU citizen is protected by the GDPR also under US law, so if an EU citizen finds their data being used without their consent they can make an official complaint.

But the problem here is the consent, as most people accept any request they see on a web page or phone app without reading them, so they cannot complain about the consequences of their own actions or inactions.

So let’s say Jeff a serial killer goes to his victims house and hacks up his victim. He brings his phone with him in case of an emergency.

He gets arrested for reckless driving. They find a body part in his pocket.

Can the police legally use his phones data to track where he was in the past?

[Maxmars]

So let’s say Jeff a serial killer goes to his victims house and hacks up his victim. He brings his phone with him in case of an emergency.
He gets arrested for reckless driving. They find a body part in his pocket.
Can the police legally use his phones data to track where he was in the past?

The simple answer is "yes" - but as of now, the police will have to pay the ISPs for it... "justice as profit".

Privacy is void where criminal action is concerned. 
The commission of crime instigates investigation, privacy is not a barrier to it.
It's part of the covenant you adopt when you set out to kill, steal, harm... crime is a "come what may" thing.

But this association of crime with privacy seems weak. 
That association could rightly justify that privacy leads to crime, or that privacy IS a crime!
That is the hyperbolic ending of our disconnection with privacy as an element of human dignity.
Bad behaviors happens with or without privacy, why should it be privacy that gets amputated if it does not stop, or even address, the bad behavior?

Further, this is not about the bad behavior of people whom we judge "shouldn't have privacy," this is about privacy as an element of the natural state of social existence.
Will those raping your data for their profit posture as "protectors" of society now?  And charge you a fee, no doubt, for the service? Or charge authorities investigating crime?  Are they to be the 'gatekeepers' now?  "Selling" something they haven't created, or even compensated the creator for?  Allusions of slavery again.

Information that exists in direct relation to me, who I am, where I am, what I do (or even think)... that is NOT low-hanging fruit for anyone to exploit... except ISPs in America it appears.

And we, as users of the Internet, have we any say whatsoever? 
Can we object, if so to whom? 
Apparently, the only people who object "haven't the 'legal' authority to do anything." 
Apparently, complaining directly to the abuser is only a joke, a profit opportunity for lawyers, an exercise in whining about things you can't change.

There are two kinds of blindness in the world, people who can't see; and people who can see, but won't look.

Privacy is more than a 'convenient' 'no-matter' triviality... it is a foundational element of personal freedom from which liberty becomes real.

[Quantum12]

The simple answer is "yes" - but as of now, the police will have to pay the ISPs for it... "justice as profit".

Wow! I wonder about in court. A good defense lawyer would come up with a crazy story, he would tell Jeff to leave his phone at home the next time you go out and kill someone!

[ArMaP]

Can the police legally use his phones data to track where he was in the past?

Yes.