<\/p>\n
The hammer finally dropped. In a ruling that stunned telecom giants and thrilled privacy advocates, the Supreme Court just handed AT&T and Verizon a brutal legal defeat over the sale of customers\u2019 real-time location data. Billions in future penalties, and the power of federal regulators, were on the line. One justice stood alone in dissent as the Court drew a hard li\u2026 Continues\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court\u2019s 8\u20131 decision cements the FCC\u2019s power to punish telecom companies that mishandle Americans\u2019 most intimate data: their real-time physical location. AT&T and Verizon had argued that the agency\u2019s enforcement process was unconstitutional because it allowed massive fines without first giving them a jury trial. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, rejected that claim and emphasized that the carriers always had a choice: refuse to pay, force the government into court, and then demand a jury.<\/p>\n
By upholding the FCC\u2019s $104 million in fines and its broader enforcement framework, the Court preserved a crucial tool for policing an industry that quietly turned customers into tracking targets. Advocacy groups hailed the ruling as a rare, decisive victory for privacy, recalling how location data was sold, resold, and exploited by bounty hunters and even a rogue sheriff. For now, at least, regulators still have teeth\u2014and the telecoms know it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The hammer finally dropped. In a ruling that stunned telecom giants and thrilled privacy advocates, the Supreme Court just handed AT&T and Verizon a brutal legal defeat over the … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11062,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11060\/revisions\/11062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heightshowtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}