The four major carriers in the United States have said that they are no longer selling users’ location data to third-party data aggregators. The carriers had previously promised to halt this practice in June of last year. They have now confirmed that this practice has stopped in a response to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel’s request regarding an update on the matter.
Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint have responded to the commissioner’s request regarding an update on the practice and confirmed that they stopped sales of users’ location data to aggregators not long after first promising to do so in June last year.
With the exception of Sprint, the other carriers had all confirmed by March 2019 that they had ended sales of the data completely. Sprint later confirmed that its last deal with a location aggregator is set to end on May 31st.
Even though the sales have ended, the question about their legality still remains. It’s unclear whether the carriers broke the law by selling the data in the first place. There isn’t any indication as yet to suggest that the mobile carriers had obtained clear consent from their users to sell their data to location aggregators. A determination in this regard has to come from the FCC and it’s not known when that might happen.
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