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.
  • Ranvier@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    68
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 months ago

    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.

  • Toes♀@ani.social
    cake
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    That fine is a zero short, should see a reimbursement to each affected customer on the scale of 10k/person.

  • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    5 months ago

    I was in the miraikan museum in Tokyo once where they had a whole exposition on tracking masses in order to optimize traffic flow (pedestrian, car and public transit). A big part of the 3xpo was the privacy first approach. They u derstood that in order to get I to the real traffic patterns they would have to record vast amounts of sensitive data and went through great lengths to protect privacy.

    I wish this was more common.

      • shortwavesurfer@monero.town
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        5 months ago

        I swear, in general, open source software is absolutely fantastic. But open source developers have no concept of naming things in general and or user design in general. They make great software, but choose absolutely horrid names and or user interfaces.

        • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          5 months ago

          They only changed a letter, and are essentially just shortening Not.

          Nitter = Not Twitter Neuters = Not Reuters

        • SaltySalamander@fedia.io
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          choose absolutely horrid names and or user interfaces

          Get a free tool.

          Bitch incessantly about said free tool.

          News flash, the tool wasn’t made for you.

          • shortwavesurfer@monero.town
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            5 months ago

            This was literally my first time ever using it. As I said, it’s a great tool. I’m not criticizing the work at all.

  • urist@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    Nueters

    Oh no

    how do you pronounce this? Noiters? Nooters?

    Edit: it’s very nice, neat idea

  • JCreazy@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    5 months ago

    Great job FCC. You did nothing. Congratulations. They are just going to do it again.