I have been diligent at making sure that my phone never has location services activated.   Because I do not agree to let those app developers harvest and sell my data.  It’s pretty annoying that many of them- without my express permission- feel obliged to activate my location services, even if I am not using their app.

(I already reported how phones track our locations- even if we have location services turned off.)

But, that’s only part of the problem.  Let’s review.

Two years ago, the Senate and House passed a resolution telling the FCC that they should NOT approve (actually repeal) the Broadband Consumer Privacy Proposal that was produced by the FCC under the Obama Administration.  Those provisions were developed to stop companies from collecting our browsing habits, our communications, our apps, our location data, our social security numbers- in other words protect our data from being made completely public.  After all, that is what we would want.

Except, like Michigan did to its voters and Utah is doing to theirs, the elected representatives are acting upon the wishes of corporate lobbyists and not their constituents.  In the case of the FCC regulations, the Senate and House joint resolution afforded phone companies and internet providers the ability to harvest our data and sell it to whomever they want- without once informing of us to whom or why they feel compelled to profit from our privacy intrusions.

(In Utah’s case, the ‘representatives’ [sic] decided that the voters’ desire to expand Medicaid under PPACA (Obamacare) was not valid.  And, simply ignored the vote and said no to the expansion.  The Michigan ‘representatives’ [sic] decided that the plebiscite to raise the minimum wage was unimportant and rescinded the peoples’ wishes.)

Now, what a surprise…

The information that AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile have been collecting and selling are ending up in the ‘wrong hands’.  (Like any hands but our own could possible be considered the right hands.)

For example, it’s been reported that these communication moguls have sold information to a bounty hunter who was trying to scare a reporter.  (AT&T).

Or, prison officials have used the data to spy on innocent Americans.  (Verizon).

The first break in these nefarious policies came from AT&T- that it would no longer sell location data to anyone.  Whether that ‘anyone’ could be considered helpful or not.  (Like they should get to make that choice.)

T- Mobile announced that they will cease brokering our privacy data starting today.  Followed by Verizon, who stated that they would not sell their data- not even to roadside assistance services.  (They were trying to get consumers to feel sorry about this recapture of our privacy.  Let me make this clear- we are all pretty competent to notify the roadside service provider where we are.)

We should be thankful to folks like Vice Motherboard  who brought these practices into the open.  They (the reporters) actually paid a bounty hunter to find a T-Mobile subscriber (all of $ 300)- which results led to their expose.

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