The country’s leading carriers this week vowed to put a stop to the unauthorized collection of customer location information by cutting off contracts with location aggregators.
The four leading wireless carriers — AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon — have been selling real-time location data to third parties to be used for targeted advertising, as well as location-based services, including roadside assistance and cargo tracking. However, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon sounded the alarm on location sharing practices last month in a letter to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) after he said his own investigation revealed questionable data handling practices by third-party providers.
