Charter sued for selling personal customer data without consent

Charter Communications has been hit with a class action suit in St. Louis (MO) for selling subscribers’ personally identifiable information. A subscriber said that between 2011 and 2013, Charter sold information such as names and addresses to unknown companies without customer consent. The plaintiffs are alleging that Charter violated Missouri’s Merchandising Practices Act. The subscriber claims he was not provided with a copy of Charter’s privacy policy, which is required under that law. The complaint also said Charter failed to obtain written consent to sell the information or provide an opt-out provision.

Notably, when Comcast, Verizon and AT&T each put out statements two weeks ago swearing to not sell private customer data in the wake of the Republican Congress’ decision to dispense of Obama-era privacy protections, the nation’s No. 2 cable operator was quiet.