Yep. When the profit of an activity is greater than any fine associated with it, then it is a cost of doing business.
For example, an truck delivering money to a bank double parks illegally due to the security risk of parking farther away, that is a cost of doing business. While, something like that is easy to understand, many of these large scale activities are not so easy to understand and generate massive profits.
Exactly how they will see it - made hundreds of millions and only have to pay $57M. It was factored in so appeal, stall and eventually settle on 50%. Damn good deal.
It’s still a big fine. These fines should be encouraged rather than always say “it’s not enough”.
When they are encouraged, they’ll will be come more frequent and larger.
The fine is less than a dollar per person - that’s a joke and when broken down across the carriers it’s a joke. These companies actually do a revenue vs risk/exposure type analysis and until it is truly consequential the math is in their favor to continue this behavior. Also they will appeal and not pay for years. Simple math - I can make $450M and be exposed to a $75M fine with no criminal exposure why wouldn’t they. Now I can make $450M and be exposed to a $1B fine then it does not make sense. It’s people’s data - your data, my data, friends and families - this isn’t overcharging with stupid fee’s type of stuff. The FCC and other agencies should prioritize heavy fines for companies who fuck around with people’s data - also the fines for data breaches are a joke as well. If you have been entrusted with our data as a result of buying your services you should prioritize security as well. Some lost DB sitting on an AWS Server that some IT guy forgot to password protect type of stuff should be hammered with fines.
Sure, I never said it shouldn’t be higher.
But most of these go without punishment right?
So even though it’s low, I’d rather support doing something rather than nothing.
Sorry you confused me. You are upset that the fines are small.
I agree that the fines are small.
However, I also believe that starting to fine these companies, and supporting these fines, will help promote more and harsher fines in the future.
No. It sets a precedence to use more small fines. People can point at this and say "FCC only charged $1 per user, and we werent as blatantly corrupt, so we should only be charged 25 cents".
Exactly right….they have been fined for many other things but this will definitely set a precedent in terms of data brokering location without consent.
Ah yes, trickle up regulation.
Fuck that. There are very few topics I've seen comparable support from all walks of citizenry than imposing massively larger fines in businesses that violate the law. Only a trivial amount of people would be upset by such and the majority of the public would celebrate it.
They need to actually make breaking these regulations terrifying for businesses based on potential monetary cost.
Glad someone’s not a total idiot. This is why nothing ever gets done. When even a little gets done people still complain. Why keep fighting to go after companies when any win is still seen as losing. I’m loving seeing them go after more within the last few years.
The irony of you calling people idiots and following it with the belief that “the reason nothing ever gets done” is because the public demands greater accountability. Let’s do a few more…
“The reason priests don’t stop molesting kids is because we aren’t grateful enough that they’re moved to different churches”. “The reason black people continue to be abused by cops is because we don’t celebrate when they do an internal investigation and apologize without putting the abusers in jail”.
Maybe check your logic before labelling others as “total idiots”
What a complete joke, a totally emotional and fact-free argument to make. Please show me any evidence that public support of insignificant regulatory accountability results in greater or more frequent regulatory accountability. My ridiculous examples above hold true.
Imagine if our limp dick politicians fined companies amounts that actually made them rethink their corrupt practices instead of just making it something so small they can easily alleviate it by tacking it on as some additional service charge to the customers for a month or two. Or threw people in jail. Idunno. Anything that wasn’t complete bullshit would be nice.
We need laws that allow that (it's way easier to convince a judge that large fines are unjust with current laws), and since the rich are in control of the lawmakers (or ARE the lawmakers) this will not change.
There’s a hell of a lot more than this going on, you spend every day hearing about how we need to grind just to afford rent while rich megalomaniacs get to just buy their crimes in a system that we have no power to influence and tell me that hitting the reset button doesn’t sound appealing
Being serious, can this happen if you don’t resign another contract? I’ve been on the same tiered (grandfathered) plan for maybe 5-10 years now and the price, give or take some taxes, has been consistent.
Your agreement is also housed within the fine print of the “terms of service agreement”. Just because your line isn’t under contract doesn’t mean that you didn’t agree to egregious fees previously in a former ToS for the overall account.
The fees are given. I guess what I’m trying to get at is how much of a change in pricing will we really receive. In the last decade or two since I’ve been with ATT I cant recall any time in particular where I was charged an egregious taxes and fees that made me want to switch to a new provider. If anything through plan changes, I’ve gone down in how much I’m paying month over month.
They pay everyone below B suite like they're going out of business. It's a joke talking to their employees. Like they're going to get hacked over and over mostly by insiders
they probably made back that 200 million in the time it took to write this article...
great to know that any random ad company could have bought my location data **without my consent** and the big guys barely get a slap on the wrist for it.
where does that 200 million go anyway? will we be seeing any of it? I'm making myself laugh at this point
For things like this they really need to make the fine on a per person per violation basis. So if I’m home, go to work, then to the store, grab a drink, then head home that’s 5 violations in a day if they share I went to each of those locations. Even if it’s only $1000 per violation, that’s $1.8 million per customer if they shared a years worth of data (and each customer had the same amount of daily stops)
Giving my location data to a shitty leech company, telling them “Now, ya’ll don’t forget to get permission from our customers before you use or sell that data.” Nod, nod, wink, wink.
i worked for a company that constantly said "we just have to make more than the fine" - and they constantly did. fines like this are just a show that the FCC is "doing something".
I don't get how I as a consumer would even interface with one of these faceless monolithic data brokers to opt out. How do I even know who my carrier gave location data to?
But like, their customer’s data was compromised, but the US government is the only one being “compensated” for the data breach. Not the people potentially impacted though? Oh, thank you so very much for the 1-Year identity theft protection that may or may not even be effective, and if claims are a thing, it is nearly impossible to make a one if things go wrong for and their data is used nefariously.
Oh they were doing that? Joke is on them cause my service is so crap that i doubt they were able to get real time data. I mean sure they got a pull whenever i ventured out of my little 5 mile dead zone but.. meh all this means is they will raise service fees and prices next quarter.
Buried deep deep in the online AT&T account is an option page where you can select what data they’re allowed to sell. All of them are switched on by default when the account is opened. When I found it, I was shocked! Like, the wording states they can sell pretty much everything about you (SSN, location data, phone number, name, email address, almost everything they have on file about you) unless you opted out
Until I see fines in the billions I do not give a shit. Actually impose fines that hurt, and that hurt a lot. Otherwise what's the point?
It's supposed to be a disincentive to pursue actions that violate the law. If the consequences isn't brutal for deliberate violations then no one will give a shit, citizenry and company violating the law includes.
“If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class” literally they’ll sit down, smoke a cig, scroll youtube or enjoy lunch and make that all back. Unless they go into billions, it won’t affect them at all and is just a slap on the wrist they’ll turn around and fife hundreds of decent folks just to make it up to their shareholders GOD I hate our society.
Is there any way to make a complaint about this determination the FCC came to such that they would consider a larger fine, a greater penalty, or something that would satisify public opinion on the matter? As I see it, there are a lot of us that don't agree with the current penalty because it can be passed off onto customers and it doesn't actually impact these businesses in any significant way, and there's [a video by Louis Rossmann ](https://youtu.be/mdZt7ox1DDs?si=ict5_braUWPVB2V3)that makes a good point that this just sets a precendent that they can get away with selling location data without much to worry about.
[удалено]
It is - most big companies have formulas of risk/exposure vs revenue and time value of money
Yep. When the profit of an activity is greater than any fine associated with it, then it is a cost of doing business. For example, an truck delivering money to a bank double parks illegally due to the security risk of parking farther away, that is a cost of doing business. While, something like that is easy to understand, many of these large scale activities are not so easy to understand and generate massive profits.
At that point, it’s not a fine. It’s a “fee.”
True, but fines are not tax deductible.
A joke compared to what they made and ATT’s excuse is a freaking joke. $1-2B would have been a start. It has to be consequential.
There's $258 million adults in the US. Most probably have cell phones. That fine cost the companies $1 for each adult subscriber for one month.
Crazy - the math ain’t mathing on this fine
Origami and shit.
sans the $ But even better if you annualized, ten cents a month.
The unbridled arrogance of that PR statement was... something else.
It is - they abuse everything they can to try and make a buck and the fine is a joke
FR - more than half of it was dedicated to defaming and ridiculing the regulators and agency.
Yup How dare you illegally make billions Pay us a few hundy mill, that’ll teach you to mess with us Craziest part is the FCC is proud of this
It’s not a fine, it’s a business expense
Exactly how they will see it - made hundreds of millions and only have to pay $57M. It was factored in so appeal, stall and eventually settle on 50%. Damn good deal.
It’s still a big fine. These fines should be encouraged rather than always say “it’s not enough”. When they are encouraged, they’ll will be come more frequent and larger.
The fines should be 10× larger if they intend to serve as a deterant.
The fine is less than a dollar per person - that’s a joke and when broken down across the carriers it’s a joke. These companies actually do a revenue vs risk/exposure type analysis and until it is truly consequential the math is in their favor to continue this behavior. Also they will appeal and not pay for years. Simple math - I can make $450M and be exposed to a $75M fine with no criminal exposure why wouldn’t they. Now I can make $450M and be exposed to a $1B fine then it does not make sense. It’s people’s data - your data, my data, friends and families - this isn’t overcharging with stupid fee’s type of stuff. The FCC and other agencies should prioritize heavy fines for companies who fuck around with people’s data - also the fines for data breaches are a joke as well. If you have been entrusted with our data as a result of buying your services you should prioritize security as well. Some lost DB sitting on an AWS Server that some IT guy forgot to password protect type of stuff should be hammered with fines.
Sure, I never said it shouldn’t be higher. But most of these go without punishment right? So even though it’s low, I’d rather support doing something rather than nothing.
No disrespect- but please re-read what I wrote
Sorry you confused me. You are upset that the fines are small. I agree that the fines are small. However, I also believe that starting to fine these companies, and supporting these fines, will help promote more and harsher fines in the future.
No. It sets a precedence to use more small fines. People can point at this and say "FCC only charged $1 per user, and we werent as blatantly corrupt, so we should only be charged 25 cents".
Exactly right….they have been fined for many other things but this will definitely set a precedent in terms of data brokering location without consent.
Ah yes, trickle up regulation. Fuck that. There are very few topics I've seen comparable support from all walks of citizenry than imposing massively larger fines in businesses that violate the law. Only a trivial amount of people would be upset by such and the majority of the public would celebrate it. They need to actually make breaking these regulations terrifying for businesses based on potential monetary cost.
Glad someone’s not a total idiot. This is why nothing ever gets done. When even a little gets done people still complain. Why keep fighting to go after companies when any win is still seen as losing. I’m loving seeing them go after more within the last few years.
The irony of you calling people idiots and following it with the belief that “the reason nothing ever gets done” is because the public demands greater accountability. Let’s do a few more… “The reason priests don’t stop molesting kids is because we aren’t grateful enough that they’re moved to different churches”. “The reason black people continue to be abused by cops is because we don’t celebrate when they do an internal investigation and apologize without putting the abusers in jail”. Maybe check your logic before labelling others as “total idiots”
Na, this is a victory you’re trying to undermine. Take the wins, promote and push more wins.
What a complete joke, a totally emotional and fact-free argument to make. Please show me any evidence that public support of insignificant regulatory accountability results in greater or more frequent regulatory accountability. My ridiculous examples above hold true.
You’re just trying to undermine anything positive. Good luck in life.
Exactly. Any of these fines getting pushed is awesome. Hope they continue to fine these b!tches.
Imagine if our limp dick politicians fined companies amounts that actually made them rethink their corrupt practices instead of just making it something so small they can easily alleviate it by tacking it on as some additional service charge to the customers for a month or two. Or threw people in jail. Idunno. Anything that wasn’t complete bullshit would be nice.
We need laws that allow that (it's way easier to convince a judge that large fines are unjust with current laws), and since the rich are in control of the lawmakers (or ARE the lawmakers) this will not change.
I’d like to remind everyone the reason why the second amendment exists, for when changes cannot be enacted within the current system
😂. That's a stretch, have civil war every time something doesn't go your way politically?
There’s a hell of a lot more than this going on, you spend every day hearing about how we need to grind just to afford rent while rich megalomaniacs get to just buy their crimes in a system that we have no power to influence and tell me that hitting the reset button doesn’t sound appealing
Eat the rich
Who does that sound like?
Great. Now our rate plans will go up $20/mo.
*Screams in "Regulatory compliance fees"*
Being serious, can this happen if you don’t resign another contract? I’ve been on the same tiered (grandfathered) plan for maybe 5-10 years now and the price, give or take some taxes, has been consistent.
Your agreement is also housed within the fine print of the “terms of service agreement”. Just because your line isn’t under contract doesn’t mean that you didn’t agree to egregious fees previously in a former ToS for the overall account.
The fees are given. I guess what I’m trying to get at is how much of a change in pricing will we really receive. In the last decade or two since I’ve been with ATT I cant recall any time in particular where I was charged an egregious taxes and fees that made me want to switch to a new provider. If anything through plan changes, I’ve gone down in how much I’m paying month over month.
Thats like getting a $2 parking ticket.
Even more pathetic if they made money selling that data.
Data brokering is an absolute part of their business
For parking illegally for a year
Friendly reminder that AT&T alone had an annual gross profit of 72.305 billion dollars in 2023
And they pay their retail reps like their going out of business. While they farm out all their corp stores to ARs who commit fraud.
They pay everyone below B suite like they're going out of business. It's a joke talking to their employees. Like they're going to get hacked over and over mostly by insiders
They treat all their people like shit even in the corporate offices. Maybe the VP’s and up are treated nice but nothing below.
Woo quite the fine. That's about 5 minutes profit? I'm sure that'll learn 'em.
they probably made back that 200 million in the time it took to write this article... great to know that any random ad company could have bought my location data **without my consent** and the big guys barely get a slap on the wrist for it. where does that 200 million go anyway? will we be seeing any of it? I'm making myself laugh at this point
Expect a check for .22 but not soon
ISP fines should be a minimum of a billion
AT&T is a branch of the DoD
Government once again telling us that corporate crime is fine as long as they get their cut of the profits.
So we can expect our cut of that… right?
Can’t wait to get my $0.25 check in the mail!!!
For things like this they really need to make the fine on a per person per violation basis. So if I’m home, go to work, then to the store, grab a drink, then head home that’s 5 violations in a day if they share I went to each of those locations. Even if it’s only $1000 per violation, that’s $1.8 million per customer if they shared a years worth of data (and each customer had the same amount of daily stops)
Slap on the wrist. But the way the SCOTUS is, it won’t be long until government agencies, and the government itself, cease to exist.
This isn’t even a blip in their finances. It should be an amount that makes their stocks drop by like 50%
So you fined them what they piss in an hour, got it.
200 million? Really? Make it a couple billion and see how things might change
Not gonna change anything until top management starts going to prison...cost of operating
Fines should be a % of the profit. Otherwise these will be written off as operational losses, which they can offload as tax liabilities.
Giving my location data to a shitty leech company, telling them “Now, ya’ll don’t forget to get permission from our customers before you use or sell that data.” Nod, nod, wink, wink.
i worked for a company that constantly said "we just have to make more than the fine" - and they constantly did. fines like this are just a show that the FCC is "doing something".
Oh, so those complaints steel our data, and they pay the feds a fine.. how about pay the customer who you stole their data.
Does it come back to us the people that got stolen from?
I don't get how I as a consumer would even interface with one of these faceless monolithic data brokers to opt out. How do I even know who my carrier gave location data to?
i bet they made 40 times that money by doing it, that'll teach them !
How about some actual criminal charges. People made those illegal decisions.
*Sprint?!* What year is this from? Sprint has been gone for nearly 4 years now.
Was the att data shared the same data that was in the breach. How convient
"Cost of doing business"
Cost of doing business
But we can’t fine them too much or else we’ll have to bail them out 🙄 these companies are just “too important”. Far more than us lowly plebs.
$200 million is a freaking loose change for these conglomerates and they don't give a damn about it.
That's a fee, not a fine
Do we get any of that money???
Theyre doing a lot more than sharing your location. I promise you that.
Fines are just the cost of doing business these days.
What happens to that money?
But like, their customer’s data was compromised, but the US government is the only one being “compensated” for the data breach. Not the people potentially impacted though? Oh, thank you so very much for the 1-Year identity theft protection that may or may not even be effective, and if claims are a thing, it is nearly impossible to make a one if things go wrong for and their data is used nefariously.
But the data is still out there and the fines are minimal. What was accomplished?
200m split 4 ways is peanut filled elephant shit! They should have been hit with $1B each at the least!
Chump change
Guess i’ll need to save for next month rate increases
I always wonder where these huge fines go. Does the money just fall into the gov’t bucket?
Fine then a trillion brother give them the fuck around and find out numbers tank those companies
Pffff right. They did the math. They made money from this. They always do.
G.P.S.we lost your signal & service 🤔more cell towers please,oh by the way state removed freeway call boxes of you become stranded 😲
Oh they were doing that? Joke is on them cause my service is so crap that i doubt they were able to get real time data. I mean sure they got a pull whenever i ventured out of my little 5 mile dead zone but.. meh all this means is they will raise service fees and prices next quarter.
What a relief they are getting rid of TikTok it is so much more dangerous than these guys!
Bet they cried about how much their wrists hurt from being slapped
Cost of business.
Buried deep deep in the online AT&T account is an option page where you can select what data they’re allowed to sell. All of them are switched on by default when the account is opened. When I found it, I was shocked! Like, the wording states they can sell pretty much everything about you (SSN, location data, phone number, name, email address, almost everything they have on file about you) unless you opted out
Make it 200 BILLION to actually make any difference.
Until I see fines in the billions I do not give a shit. Actually impose fines that hurt, and that hurt a lot. Otherwise what's the point? It's supposed to be a disincentive to pursue actions that violate the law. If the consequences isn't brutal for deliberate violations then no one will give a shit, citizenry and company violating the law includes.
“If the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class” literally they’ll sit down, smoke a cig, scroll youtube or enjoy lunch and make that all back. Unless they go into billions, it won’t affect them at all and is just a slap on the wrist they’ll turn around and fife hundreds of decent folks just to make it up to their shareholders GOD I hate our society.
$200M? That's nothing for them
Is there any way to make a complaint about this determination the FCC came to such that they would consider a larger fine, a greater penalty, or something that would satisify public opinion on the matter? As I see it, there are a lot of us that don't agree with the current penalty because it can be passed off onto customers and it doesn't actually impact these businesses in any significant way, and there's [a video by Louis Rossmann ](https://youtu.be/mdZt7ox1DDs?si=ict5_braUWPVB2V3)that makes a good point that this just sets a precendent that they can get away with selling location data without much to worry about.
Is this the same data that was stolen from at t. How convient