Ajit Pai May Have Lied To Congress About FCC's Failure To Address Wireless Location Data Scandals

from the ill-communication dept

So we've talked a bit about how the FCC has done absolutely nothing to seriously address the rise of wireless industry location data scandals. That's despite story after story showing how wireless carriers were selling this data to an endless line of companies and organizations. Those organizations, in turn, failed utterly to protect this data from being misused by everybody from law enforcement to bail bondsman and even random stalkers posing as law enforcement. Despite this being on scale with the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal, the silence from the Pai FCC has been deafening.

Last week during a Congressional FCC oversight hearing, several lawmakers criticized Pai for failing to hold carriers accountable or even publicly mentioning the scandal. And while the FCC has supposedly been conducting an investigation for the better part of the last year, Pai's fellow commissioners say they've been stonewalled when they've asked about the progress of the inquiry. When Representative Anna Eshoo pressed Pai on whether he was withholding information from his fellow commissioners, he refused to answer the question:

"Can you tell us today that you’re going to share information with two full-fledged members of the commission?” Eshoo asked at one point. “You’re saying you can’t tell us, but will you tell them?”

“Congresswoman, this is not a ‘yes or no’ question,” he said.

Cute. Again, both of Pai's fellow Democratic Commissioners (Geoffrey Sparks and Jessica Rosenworcel) say they requested the “letters of inquiry” sent out by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau at the investigation’s outset but were repeatedly stonewalled by Pai and his leadership team. But when pressed by Congress, Pai stated he was "not aware" of any such requests, suggesting the FCC boss lied to Congress:

"Sources with knowledge of the requests told Gizmodo that they were baffled by the chairman’s response, for one reason in particular: At an FCC Open Commission Meeting on January 30, Rosenworcel told a group of reporters while live-streaming on the agency’s website: “I’ve been told there’s an investigation, but I’ve asked the enforcement bureau for the letters of inquiry that start investigations, and they have not yet been provided to me. I’d like to see them."

Given Pai's refusal to hold giant telecom carriers accountable for pretty much anything (ranging from telco taxpayer fraud to hurricane recovery failures), most of the consumer activists and lawyers I've spoken to believe Pai is just running interference for industry until the statute of limitations runs out, and the reason he doesn't want to talk much about the FCC's investigation is because it's not much of one. Some consumer groups were particularly gobsmacked by Pai's attempt to throw Commissioner Starks (who just started work) under the bus for the agency's failures on this front:

Again, Pai's decision to be a rubber stamp for the telecom industry's biggest companies isn't much in dispute at this point, though Pai and his staffers like to insist (and may even actually believe) this is all just unfair partisan posturing. Pai has repeatedly stated that the industry can self-regulate, but when it comes to privacy they've shown themselves to be incapable of the task. So while carriers say they've ceased the collection and sale of your location data to every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the internet, with their history of falsehoods on the privacy front, the only way to actually confirm this is a transparent, third party inquiry.

Filed Under: ajit pai, congress, fcc, lying to congress

DOJ Staffers Think T-Mobile's Merger Benefit Claims Are Nonsense

from the merge-ALL-the-things! dept

While the FCC announced this week it would unsurprisingly be a rubber stamp for Sprint and T-Mobile's proposed $26 billion merger, the DOJ still isn't buying the companies' claims that further consolidation of the wireless sector will be wonderful for competition and American consumers. Reports this week surfaced that DOJ staffers were still recommending that the agency block the $26 billion merger, based on fears that the deal would reduce market competition and likely result in higher prices overall:

"The U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust division staff has recommended the agency file a lawsuit to block T-Mobile US’s $26 billion acquisition of smaller rival Sprint, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The final decision on whether to allow two of the four nationwide wireless carriers to merge now lies with political appointees at the department, headed by antitrust division chief Makan Delrahim."

History and antitrust data is pretty clear on this point: when you reduce the overall number of major competitors in telecom, the end result is almost always higher prices, fewer jobs, and worse service. Growth for growth's sake may be wonderful for investors and executives over the short term, but over the longer term it's immensely harmful. You need only look at the US Telecom sector; one of the most despised, uncompetitive, and aggressively terrible sectors in all of American industry. That we refuse to learn that mindless consolidation is harmful directly reflects our refusal to learn from history.

Time and time again, telecom companies promise that somehow this merger will finally fix the universe of problems caused by... mindless merger mania. And time and time again, these telecom giants fail utterly to follow through on their promises, using the reduction in competition (and regulatory apathy) to jack up prices and lag on innovation and network expansion.

The fact that T-Mobile CEO John Legere plays a hip Millennial on Periscope and sometimes says "fuck" on Twitter doesn't change this equation. A major reason T-Mobile was so competitive and disruptive is (and "government is incapable of ever doing good" folks like to ignore this bit of history) that the DOJ blocked AT&T's attempted 2011 acquisition of the company, a decision based not only on the evidence that such consolidation would hurt consumers, but because the companies involved made a wide variety of merger benefit claims that were downright preposterous.

The DOJ did the same thing in 2014 when Sprint and T-Mobile tried to merge, again pointing to data in numerous international markets showing such consolidation raises prices and harms competition. The only reason we find ourselves once again in the same position is because T-Mobile and Sprint executives want to take advantage of the Trump administration's almost mindless belief that letting industry do whatever the fuck it wants somehow results in near-mystical outcomes (the exact kind of thinking that gave us Comcast in the first place).

While DOJ staffers are advising blocking the deal, that doesn't mean Delrahim will actually listen to them (especially if Trump applies pressure), or will do a good job in court defending consumers from mindless merger mania should the DOJ decide to sue.

Delrahim has been an odd duck to nail down in terms of antitrust enforcement. It's true that his DOJ sued to stop the AT&T Time Warner merger, but only after Rupert Murdoch (for his own competitive reasons) heavily pressured Trump to demand it. And while his antitrust enforcers' efforts to outline the obvious perils of that deal were hamstrung by ever-narrowing US antitrust guidelines and a ridiculously myopic ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, many of Delrahim's wounds were self-inflicted (like failing to mention net neutrality as essential competitive context at any point during the trial or appeal).

If the FCC and DOJ both wind up approving the deal, numerous State AGs have said they'll sue to prevent it from succeeding. That said, it's still pretty abundantly clear that America has no intention of learning from history and experience. We collectively hate Comcast, but there's still a sizeable segment that hasn't realized telecom's monopoly problems (and resulting price hikes, atrocious customer service, and patchy availability) are thanks to two things: our collective gullibility when it comes to merger mania and empty merger promises, and regulators and lawmakers that are either too timid or politically compromised to do the right thing and defend healthy markets, competition, and American consumers.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, doj, fcc, merger
Companies: sprint, t-mobile

Pai FCC 'Solution' To Nation's Great Robocall Apocalypse? More Meetings

from the nothing-to-see-here dept

Despite endless government initiatives and countless promises from the telecom sector, our national robocall hell continues. Robocalls from telemarketers continue to be the subject the FCC receives the most complaints about (200,000 complaints annually, making up 60% of all FCC complaints), and recent data from the Robocall Index indicates that the problem is only getting worse. Consumers continue to be hammered by mortgage interest rate scams, credit card scams, student loan scams, business loan scams, and IRS scams. 4.9 billion such calls were placed in April alone.

There's plenty of blame to go around when it comes to fixing the problem. The FCC, now little more than a rubber stamp for industry under Ajit Pai, has been lax in holding carrier feet to the fire. Carriers in turn have blamed everyone but themselves for their own lax response. Similarly, many carriers have been slow to offer customers free robocall blocking tech, and even slower in adopting call authentication technology (like SHAKEN/STIR), which would go a long way toward hampering the call spoofing at the heart of the problem. This John Oliver segment is worth a watch:

Enter FCC boss Ajit Pai, who has been increasingly under fire for not doing more to expedite solutions to our great, national robocall apocalypse. This week Pai proclaimed that he has "demanded" that carriers finally adopt call authentication technology this year, something that isn't much of a "demand" since most carriers have said they'd already planned to deploy the technology this year. His other solution popping up this week is being framed by media outlets fairly inaccurately as well. For example. Pai is allowed to insist via Reuters that carriers haven't deployed automatic call blocking technology because they didn't think the FCC would allow it:

"Pai said many service providers have held off developing and deploying default call-blocking tools because of uncertainty about whether the tools are legal under the FCC rules.

Allowing the default call-blocking could significantly increase development and consumer adoption of the tools, Pai said.

“By making it clear that such call blocking is allowed, the FCC will give voice service providers the legal certainty they need to block unwanted calls from the outset so that consumers never have to get them,” Pai said.

Pai's effectively trying to shift the focus away from a decade's worth of carrier failures and toward the idea that some legal confusion is the exclusive reason the industry has failed to police robocalls. But a few years ago, AT&T found itself under fire after Consumer Reports gathered a petition of 600,000 signatures demanding it do more to thwart robocalls. The company's response? To falsely blame the FCC, claiming the agency was prohibiting it from doing so. The former Wheeler FCC made it very clear in numerous letters that such tools were allowed under FCC rules.

To be clear, even clearer rules expressly permitting that carriers be allowed to implement robocall blocking tech that operates by default is all well and good. But Pai's announcement is framed in such a way to suggest that regulatory murk--not a decade of carrier apathy--is exclusively to blame for our collective robocall failures.

Pai's other primary solution for the robocall menace appears to be a new summit in July to discuss ongoing progress:

Of course in the US telecom market, a lack of competition and meaningful regulatory oversight means there's really very little penalty for lazy behavior, so "market based solutions" to problems like this are often slow to materialize if they materialize at all. Robocalls are a notable problem for Pai given they're the agency's top complaint, but actually doing something about it might need to involve actual market oversight and punishment, concepts that clash with Pai's dogmatic belief that the telecom sector can self regulate. Either way Pai's fellow Commissioners weren't particularly impressed, noting that the FCC needs fewer meetings and more concrete action:

And while Pai continues to promise he'll take "regulatory action" against carriers that drag their feet, there's some understandable skepticism on that front. After all, this is the same FCC head that just got done effectively neutering his own agency at telecom lobbyist request and routinely parrots telecom lobbyist data points with absolutely no skepticism. The sheer volume of consumer anger on this subject could push Pai out of his comfort zone, but given Pai's recent history as the poster child for regulatory capture, his willingness to actually stand up to industry giants is something that will need to be seen to be believed.

Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, jessica rosenworcel, robocalls, shaken/stir

All Four Major Wireless Carriers Hit With Lawsuits Over Sharing, Selling Location Data

from the somebody's-watching-you dept

We've noted repeatedly that if you're upset about Facebook's privacy scandals, you should be equally concerned about the wireless industry's ongoing location data scandals. Not only were the major carriers caught selling your location data to any nitwit with a checkbook, they were even found to be selling your E-911 location data, which provides even more granular detail about your data than GPS provides. This data was then found to have been widely abused from everybody from law enforcement to randos pretending to be law enforcement.

Throughout all this, the Ajit Pai FCC has done absolutely nothing to seriously police the problem. Meaning that while carriers have promised to stop collecting and selling this data, nobody has bothered to force carriers to actually confirm this. Given telecom's history when it comes to consumer privacy, somebody might just want to double check their math (and ask what happened to all that data already collected and sold over the last decade).

Compounding carrier problems, all four major wireless carriers last week were hit with a class action lawsuit (correctly) noting the carriers had violated Section 222 of the Federal Communications Act by selling consumer proprietary network information (CPNI) data:

"Through its negligent and deliberate acts, including inexplicable failures to follow its own Privacy Policy, T-Mobile permitted access to Plaintiffs and Class Members’ CPI and CPNI,” the complaint against T-Mobile reads, referring to “confidential proprietary information” and “customer proprietary network information,” the latter of which includes location data."

It's likely that the sale of 911 data is where carriers are in the most hot water, since that's their most obvious infraction of the law. It's of course worth pointing out that wireless carriers (and fixed-line ISPs, frankly) have been hoovering up and selling location, clickstream, and a vast ocean of other user data for decades with very few (any?) Congressional lawmakers much caring about it. It's another example of how Facebook's cavalier treatment of user data (and government apathy toward meaningful solutions) isn't just some errant exception -- it's the norm.

Back in 2016, the previous FCC uncharacteristically tried to impose some pretty basic rules that would have gone a long way in preventing these location data scandals by requiring that carriers be more transparent about what data is collected and who it's sold to. It also required consumers opt in to more sensitive (read: financial, location) data. But telecom lobbyists quickly convinced Congress to obliterate those rules in 2017 using the Congressional Review Act before they could even take effect.

Two years later finds the sector swimming in scandal, and everybody has a dumb look on their faces utterly perplexed as to how we got to this point.

Filed Under: class action, fcc, lawsuit, privacy, section 222, telcos
Companies: at&t, sprint, t-mobile, verizon

The Pai FCC Sits On Its Hands While Phone Companies Rip Off American Taxpayers

from the ill-communication dept

We've talked often about how the nation's phone companies, now fixated on video and online advertising, have effectively just been letting their DSL and phone networks fall apart while still charging exorbitant rates. Not only did these companies take billions in taxpayer dollars to build these older copper-based networks, they took billions more in subsidies for fiber upgrades they never fully deployed. Yet increasingly we've watched as they've refused to upgrade or even repair their networks across countless states, leaving customers trapped with expensive service that often doesn't even meet the FCC's standard definition of broadband (25 Mbps).

This problem has often been exemplified by Frontier Communications in West Virginia, where local Charleston Gazette reporter Eric Eyre has quietly done an amazing job the last few years chronicling the state's immense corruption and dysfunction, from the state's use of broadband stimulus subsidies on unused, overpowered routers and overpaid, redundant consultants, to state leaders' attempts to bury reports supporting allegations that Frontier engaged in systemic, statewide fraud on the taxpayer dime.

Though not quite as profound, similar problems have plagued Frontier's operations in the state of Minnesota. The Minnesota Attorney General's office has been investigating whether Frontier violated state consumer-protection laws for a while now, and not long ago issued a 133 page report (pdf) detailing how terrible the company is at maintaining and repairing its network despite endless taxpayer subsidies. The report clearly illustrated a pattern of the company letting outages go on for months at a time, often putting paying customers at risk:

"The findings of this investigation detail an extraordinary situation, where customers have suffered with outages of months, or more, when the law requires telephone utilities to make all reasonable efforts to prevent interruptions of service. When interruptions occur, telephone utilities are to restore service “with the shortest possible delay.” Frontier customers with these outages include those with family members with urgent medical needs, such as pacemakers monitored by their medical teams via the customer’s landline."

Given that Frontier receives $283.4 million each year from the FCC's Connect America Fund (CAF), there's some obvious questions here as to who is minding the store and ensuring that Frontier is adhering to the law.

Like most broadband dysfunction, giant broadband ISPs get away with this sort of thing thanks to two things: a lack of real broadband competition, and regulatory capture. Case in point: Ajit Pai, whose FCC is supposed at least occasionally protect the American public. Senators in Minnesota have recently been pressing him to take some kind of action, even to publicly condemn the kind of grift and consumer mistreatment that's pretty common in the the state. In a letter posted to the FCC website (pdf), Pai effectively acknowledged the problem, though falls well short of saying he'll actually do anything about it:

"...the FCC will remain vigilant to ensure that our rules are observed and taxpayer funds respected. Accordingly, I have conveyed the information from your letter regarding the state commission’s investigation to our staff and have asked them carefully to monitor this development. Thank you for bringing this aspect of the issue to my attention."

While Pai is just a particularly obvious example of the regulatory capture that has infected telecom, this kind of "maybe we'll look into it" attitude has plagued both parties for decades when it comes to big telecom's long history of taxpayer-supported shenanigans and overall apathy. Needless to say, local state Senators weren't particularly enthusiastic about Pai's promise, especially given Pai's often breathless claims that he's a champion of stopping fraud and waste:

"For a chairman who is so concerned with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, it's baffling that the commission tasked with overseeing billions of dollars in public money is declining to investigate the more than a thousand allegations of poor service by a company that receives that public money to provide those services," US Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) told Ars in a statement today."

Given this is America, this will likely just be dismissed as partisan bickering. But it shouldn't be. We've thrown endless billions in taxpayer dollars at giant telecom conglomerates with often just a fleeting effort to ensure that money is being spent wisely. And while it's nice the Pai FCC will "monitor" the problem, we're long past that point. If you dig for more than twenty seconds, you can find endless examples of giant ISPs taking taxpayer dollars in exchange for the technological equivalent of damp garbage. And were Pai a quarter of the stalwart defender of fraud and waste he professes to be, this stuff would be met with a lot more than just "we might look into it."

Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, fiber, oversight, subsidies, taxpayers, upgrades
Companies: frontier communications

The Super 'Transparent' Pai FCC Is Still Trying To Hide Details On Those Fake Net Neutrality Comments

from the dysfunction-junction dept

We've long discussed how the Pai FCC's net neutrality repeal was plagued with millions of fraudulent comments, many of which were submitted by a bot pulling names from a hacked database of some kind. Millions of ordinary folks (like myself) had their identities used to support Pai's unpopular plan, as did several Senators. Numerous journalists have submitted FOIA requests for more data (server logs, IP addresses, API data, anything) that might indicate who was behind the fraudulent comments, who may have bankrolled them, and what the Pai FCC knew about it.

But the Pai FCC has repeatedly tried to tap dance around FOIA requests, leading to several journalists (including those at the New York Times and Buzzfeed) suing the FCC. Despite the Times' lawyers best efforts to work with the FCC to tailor the nature of their requests over a period of months, the agency continues to hide behind FOIA exemptions that don't really apply here: namely FOIA exemption 6 (related to protecting privacy) and 7E (related to protecting agency security and law enforcement activity).

In court filings made last week, the FCC also reiterated its claim that the primary reason it won't release more data is because it's just super concerned about user privacy:

"If the FCC is compelled to disclose an individual’s IP address, operating system and version, browser platform and version, and language settings, and that information is linked to the individual’s publicly-available name and postal address, that disclosure would result in clearly unwarranted invasions of personal privacy,” the FCC argues in papers filed late last week with U.S. District Court Judge Lorna Schofield in the Southern District of New York."

To be clear, this is the same FCC that did absolutely nothing to prevent or address the fraud, then actively blocked law enforcement inquiries into this issue. In other words, this FCC has had numerous opportunities to cooperate with both law enforcement by providing confidential data, and has refused to do so. It's also the same FCC that has done absolutely nothing about countless privacy scandals in the telecom sector, suggesting this sudden breathless concern for privacy may not be particularly authentic.

NY Times lawyers have responded by claiming they're entitled to the data under the freedom of information act, and it's essential to discovering where the bogus comments originated. They've also argued that information like IP address isn't all that sacred, since most of the commenters have likely utilized countless different IP addresses in the several years since:

"Most individuals connect their devices to the internet using a steadily changing series of IP addresses assigned by internet service providers,” the Times wrote in a motion for summary judgment. “An internet-connected device’s IP address today may not be its IP address tomorrow. And the IP address of a device used by a commenter in mid-2017 is almost certainly not its IP address in mid-2019."

Using the data they've collected so far, diligent reporters have already found many of the fake comments were driven by CQ Roll Call, a DC-based news and policy organization, and Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF), a "dark money" influence group with historical ties to defending tobacco companies. Who their clients were in this instance should be fairly obvious, but nobody has been able to publicly, directly link the effort to the telecom sector just yet. Given several ongoing lawsuits and investigations by numerous state AGs, the GAO, and FBI, it still seems fairly likely that there's several chapters in this ridiculous novel yet to come.

Filed Under: ajit pai, fake comments, fcc, net neutrality, privacy, transparency

FCC Fixes Giant Error Over-Stating Broadband Availability... Then Doubles Down On Bogus Claims

from the ill-communication dept

Back in March, the Pai FCC proclaimed that new FCC data indicated that the agency's decision to effectively neuter itself at telecom lobbyist behest was resulting in vast, wonderful benefits for American consumers. According to the FCC, its blind fealty to AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast quickly resulted in massive steps toward "closing the digital divide," something Pai has repeatedly claimed is the top priority of his tenure:

"For the past two years, closing the digital divide has been the FCC’s top priority,” Chairman Pai said. “We’ve been tackling this problem by removing barriers to infrastructure investment, promoting competition, and providing efficient, effective support for rural broadband expansion through our Connect America Fund. This report shows that our approach is working. But we won’t rest until all Americans can have access to broadband and the 21st century opportunities it provides to communities everywhere."

While the FCC didn't release any hard data to support the claim its policies are creating telecom Utopia, it did bandy about some cherry-picked stats that in no way showed what the FCC claimed. For example, while the FCC tried to claim that 2018 was a "record year" in fiber deployment thanks to its "deregulatory" policies (like killing net neutrality), it failed to note that about half of the 6 million fiber lines deployed last year were thanks to conditions affixed to the AT&T DirecTV merger by the previous FCC (kinda the opposite of deregulation).

The Pai FCC's claims had other holes. For example much of the data it used to suggest broadband growth was exploding thanks to killing net neutrality was collected -- before net neutrality was actually formally repealed (June 2018). And about 1.9 million new subscriber growth was subsequently discovered to be thanks to a clerical error. I'd been wondering if this FCC would actually fix that error before it released a broader report, and to its credit, the agency did. But when the agency issued a press release saying it had fixed the problem, it failed to address the countless other flaws in its claims.

And while the FCC still hasn't released the underlying full report, the agency continues to double down on its underlying claim that regulatory capture is some kind of modern miracle for those without broadband:

"We’re pleased that the FCC’s policy of making deployment data open and transparent to the public resulted in this error being discovered. Fortunately, the new data doesn’t change the report’s fundamental conclusion: we are closing the digital divide, which means we’re delivering on the FCC’s top priority. We’re achieving this result by removing barriers to infrastructure investment, promoting competition, and providing efficient, effective support for rural broadband expansion through our Universal Service Fund programs"

But again, that's not at all what's been happening. The "support" Pai has provided for programs like the USF has been to slowly but surely kneecap them, including efforts to ban tribal areas from getting broadband subsidies, a move the courts slapped down for not being supported by factual data and evidence (maybe you'll notice a trend). And by targeting consumer protections like net neutrality (a move that also stripped away much of the FCC's authority over ISPs), Pai's FCC made it easier than ever for ISPs to nickel-and-dime captive customers in barely competitive markets without repercussion.

The way to fix American broadband is to embrace policies that fix the sector's biggest problem: a lack of competition. You'll notice however that Pai routinely just plain old never mentions this problem or the sky-high prices and terrible customer service that results. Instead, this FCC insists it can miraculously fix the sector's problems via industry cronyism, the exact policy approach that gave America Comcast customer support. And when the agency attempts to prove this claim, it leans heavily on data that proves nothing of the sort.

Filed Under: aji pai, broadband, clerical errors, digital divide, fcc, net neutrality

The FCC Hasn't Done A Damn Thing To Seriously Police Wireless Location Data Scandals

from the ill-communication dept

While Facebook (usually justly) gets the lion's share of privacy criticism, wireless carriers haven't been too far behind. In the last few years we've learned that they're frequently hoovering up your daily location data and then selling it to a long chain of often dubious companies. More recently they've been busted even selling access to E-911 location data, which is increasingly even more accurate in tracking users than traditional GPS. We've noted repeatedly that lax ethical standards result in this data often being abused by dubious third parties, or used illegally by law enforcement or those pretending to be law enforcement.

Throughout these evolving scandals, the Pai FCC hasn't done much of anything to ensure the public this is being adequately looked into. There's been no critical statement about this practice issued by the FCC, and no meaningful investigation launched (at least publicly). And while wireless carriers have insisted they've stopped collecting and selling this data (which they've been doing for the better part of the last decade without anybody in either party much caring), their promises historically haven't been worth all that much when it comes to the subject of privacy.

To truly address the location data scandal(s), carriers need to voluntarily or by force make it transparently clear they've stopped collecting and selling this data (which in several instances like E-911 data is against the law). Hoping to add a little fuel to the fire, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel this week ramped up her criticisms of the practice and the FCC's apathy:

As part of that push, Rosenworcel sent new letters to each of the big four wireless carriers demanding more evidence supporting their claims that they've stopped this behavior, and asking what happens to the data that's already been collected (which is, curiously I think, the first time I've even seen this question asked). The problem of course that given the Pai FCC majority is effectively a rubber stamp for industry at this juncture, it's going to be hard to get a majority vote forcing these companies to be transparent and confirm they've stopped engaging in this behavior. Carriers like Verizon, for what it's worth, insist they've learned the error of their ways:

"Verizon has led the industry in working to end agreements with location aggregators. We were first to take action when these issues surfaced last Summer. We followed through with our pledge and have fully terminated our location aggregator arrangements. We're happy to talk about what we've done in this area with the Commissioner."

Which again, might mean something if this was an industry that had any credibility on this subject. But Verizon in particular has a long history of collecting and monetizing user data without being transparent about it. And trying to downplay the scope of the problems with its behavior. And of course working tirelessly to scuttle every attempt at new privacy guidelines, no matter how modest. You know, like the fairly basic FCC privacy rules Verizon convinced Congress to quickly scuttle in 2017 that would have gone a long way in preventing these exact location data scandals in the first place.

And on the rare occasion the company is actually punished, the fines are often a tiny, tiny fraction of the money gleaned by whatever shady behavior they were engaged in, which does nothing to deter future bad actions (in fact it in some ways encourages it). And with Pai having just effectively neutered a lot of the FCC's authority over ISPs at their lobbyists' behest, it's going to be harder than ever to force a serious reckoning on this subject should carriers prove uncooperative and non-transparent.

Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, location data, privacy