Washington CNN —The US government has issued millions of dollars in fines to AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon after an investigation found the nation’s top wireless carriers had illegally shared customers’ personal data without their consent. The fines target a practice in which carriers shared user location information with data resellers, known in the industry as “location aggregators.” These aggregators passed the data onward to their own third-party customers. “Each carrier attempted to offload its obligations to obtain customer consent onto downstream recipients of location information, which in many instances meant that no valid customer consent was obtained,” the FCC said in a release. In response to the FCC fines, all of the wireless carriers said they expect to appeal the decision. We take our responsibility to keep customer data secure very seriously and have always supported the FCC’s commitment to protecting consumers, but this decision is wrong, and the fine is excessive.

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Persons: Trump, perversely, ”, “, Oregon Democratic Sen, Ron Wyden, Wyden, ” Wyden Organizations: Washington CNN, Mobile, Verizon, Federal Communications Commission, FCC, Sprint, ” Verizon, Oregon Democratic Locations: Securus