Carriers claimed that selling data did not violate the law
Instead of refusing the allegations, the carriers argued that the FCC exceeded its authority. But the court panel of the appeal decided that the FCC acted correctly:
Sprint and T-Mobile (collective, “The Carriers”), now begs a request for our assessment. Neither of them denies what happened. Instead, they claim that the undisputed facts do not amount to a violation of the law. The carriers also claim that the Commission has incorrectly interpreted the Communication Act, incorrectly calculated the fines and the seventh amendment violated by not offering them jury rights. Because the arguments of the carriers have no merit, we deny the petitions for assessment.
The FCC fines include $ 80.1 million for T-Mobile and $ 12.2 million for Sprint. T-Mobile, which Sprint bought in 2020, reported a turnover of $ 17.4 billion and net income of $ 3.2 billion in the most recent quarter.
Although the FCC first proposed the fines in 2020, the vote of the 2024 was to complete the penalties under the Republican chairman Ajit Pai, with dissidents of Republicans Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington. Carr is now chairman of the FCC.
T-Mobile today told Ars that “currently revised the action of the court” but did not comment. The courier would be one and Banc Assessment for all judges of the Court of Appeal, or ask the Supreme Court to revise the case. In the meantime, AT&T challenges its fine in the 5th Circuit Appeals Court, while Verizon is a challenge in the 2nd circuit.
AT&T and Verizon received a fine of $ 57.3 million and $ 46.9 million respectively. The FCC last year said that the most important airlines have announced the information about the customer location “without the permission of the customer or other legal authorization to a sheriff in Missouri via a 'location -ending service' that is managed by Securus, a provider of communication services for correction facilities, to follow the location of countless persons.”
