How Much Did the U.S. Wireless Carriers “Earn” From “Location Information Aggregators”?

The Federal Communications Commission lawfully fined U.S. facilities-based wireless carriers nearly $200 million for selling highly intrusive location data about subscribers without their “opt-in” consent. In Section 222 of the Communications Act, Congress comprehensively specified how the carriers bore an affirmative duty of care not to disclose clearly defined Customer Proprietary Information (“CPNI”).  The Act explicitly required the FCC, and no other agency, to protect telecommunications consumers. The language in this section is quite unambiguous.  Congress surely answered the “major question” whether and how the FCC has jurisdiction to protect telecommunications service subscribers from the unconsented commercial exploitation of data about their immediate location. There is no basis for the carriers, or certain dissenting FCC Commissioners, to state that the Federal Trade Commission has exclusive jurisdiction over any and all consumer privacy issues. There is no doubt that all the facilities-based carriers “monetized” this information, but we will never know how many millions they received, because the carriers would scream bloody murder that such information is “business confidential” and “proprietary.” I’ll bet the carriers received far more than the $200 million they have to forfeit.