AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile hit with lawsuit for selling data

The four major wireless telecommunication companies in the U.S. have just been hit with massive class action lawsuit.

The suit claims that AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile all violated customers’ privacy by sharing their data to third party brokers. In turn, these brokers would then sell the data to bounty hunters, bail bondsmen, debt collectors, and middlemen. 

The complaint alleges that the four biggest U.S. mobile carriers violated federal communications law by sharing phone numbers, geolocation data, and other account information. The class action covers approximately 300 million customers ranging from April 30, 2015 and February 15, 2019 spread out between the four companies.

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The data selling practice was brought to light earlier in 2019 through an investigation by Motherboard. The report detailed how a bounty hunter was able to track a phone’s location with nothing more than a phone number through third-party services that receive real-time data directly from the telecommunication companies. Motherboard paid a $300 fee for the data.

Following the report, 15 U.S. Senators called on the FCC and FTC to conduct an investigation into the four companies and the data selling practice. 

The lawsuits were filed against Z Law, which bills itself as a “consumer protection law firm.” Lawyers are seeking unspecified damages which will be determined at trial.