When consumers expect their location data to remain private, two of the largest wireless providers in America bet that the courts would shield them from accountability.
That gamble just cost AT&T and Verizon $104 million—and it came with no legal victory. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday rejected both companies’ appeals, leaving intact a fine imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for unlawfully selling precise location information without proper consumer consent.
The ruling is more than a financial setback; it’s a rejection of the carriers’ argument that their actions should be judged under a different legal standard. The FCC had determined that AT&T and Verizon violated a 2017 rule requiring explicit user authorization before sharing location data with third parties. The companies, however, claimed they were exempt because the data was sold to advertisers rather than law enforcement—a distinction the Supreme Court did not accept.
For the FCC, this is a rare win in an era of regulatory pushback. For consumers and privacy advocates, it’s a reminder that corporate appeals don’t always override established rules—especially when those rules are designed to protect personal information from being treated as a commodity.
The fine, first announced in 2019, stems from investigations into how AT&T and Verizon handled location data between 2017 and 2019. The FCC found that both carriers sold access to real-time location information—down to the level of a single street address or even individual coordinates—without disclosing it in their privacy policies or obtaining affirmative consent from users.
The Supreme Court’s decision does not address whether the FCC’s rule itself was reasonable, only whether the carriers had a valid legal defense. That means the underlying rule remains in place, and future violations could trigger similar penalties. It also leaves open the question of how other companies—particularly those in adjacent industries like data brokers or app developers—might interpret the ruling.
For AT&T and Verizon, the financial impact is immediate: $104 million in combined fines, though neither company has publicly acknowledged payment status. For smaller competitors or startups in the telecom space, the case serves as a cautionary tale about the risks of skirting privacy regulations—even if the intent was to remain competitive.
Yet the broader implications may not be fully clear yet. The FCC’s rule was updated in 2018 to require carriers to disclose location data sales in their privacy policies, but enforcement has been inconsistent. Whether this ruling will lead to stricter oversight or more legal challenges remains uncertain. One thing is certain: the Supreme Court has sent a message that selling user location data without proper safeguards won’t be tolerated—and that message isn’t going away anytime soon.
