
Verizon, AT&T and Sprint to Limit Sales of Cellphone Location Data - mcenedella
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/technology/verizon-att-cellphone-tracking.html
======
mkempe
In Switzerland there is a concept of the "private sphere" [1] and it basically
implies that others do not have the right to pry into nor track that sphere.
Each individual and family has their own sense of that sphere and of how large
it is. Under this concept I cannot conceive of corporations monitoring and
tracking people, then selling that information, as is currently done in the
US. For instance, in Switzerland it is illegal to create a database on other
people without their knowledge and consent.

It is stronger than the idea of "privacy" \-- its intent is to completely
isolate and protect parts of your life from both the political and the public,
which includes the commercial. The right to property is part of it. Note that
the Wikipedia description of French "vie privée" ("private life") [2] has
deeper and more distinct grounding than the one on "privacy" [3] -- the latter
claims that this is mainly a US/British legal conceptualization, but the idea
of a private life that should be protected has strong historical and a
different effective presence in several European legal systems.

[1] [http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/f/F16104.php](http://www.hls-dhs-
dss.ch/textes/f/F16104.php)

[2]
[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vie_privée](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vie_privée)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy)

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I don't have a whole lot to support my ideas here, other than a collection of
my own ideas etc.

When your whole country is about 8.5 million people it must be difficult to
ever go anywhere and be a complete stranger.

The USA seems to be such a huge land, both geographically and demographically,
that I think it lends itself to a variety of groups exploiting others. I don't
think _The USA_ is a _homogeneous whole_.

Or, if there were a scale on which various countries could be placed to
describe homogeneity The USA would be at the far end of one extreme of that
scale.

I think that's why The USA seems to be such a hodgepodge of poor planning and
action.

~~~
oblio
> When your whole country is about 8.5 million people it must be difficult to
> ever go anywhere and be a complete stranger.

I know it's not HackerNews material, but: LOL.

In a country with 8.5 million people it's not like you're living in a village
with 5000 people where you know everyone. I think that once you have more than
about 1 million people it's quite feasible to have perfect anonymity.

More than that, in Switzerland they speak 4 different languages (German,
French, Italian and the Romance language Romansch). The communities are quite
separate, it's entirely possible for your average French Swiss to not have
much to do with his fellow German Swiss countrymen.

~~~
cascom
I don’t think the OP was being completely literal, and your point about
language barriers is well taken, but in the context of America, Switzerland is
the state of Virginia in terms of population (and about 40% of Virginia’s land
area).

In that context, Swiss national politics is more akin U.S. state level
politics, where there tends to be much more cohesion.

~~~
CaptainZapp
Actually, as a fiercly federalist country politics are very much comparable to
a lesser corrupt US. In fact parts of the US system were implemented with the
founding of the Swiss Confederation. Namely the two houses.

The principle of governance is to push as much power as possible as locally as
possible. Communities and cities as well as cantons (states) in Switzerland
have a lot of leeway in handling their affairs. As long there's no violation
of higher principles. For example a violation of the federal constitution.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _parts of the US system were implemented with the founding of the Swiss
> Confederation_

Specifically, on the California constitution. (The Swiss system improves on
California’s referendum process by making the referenda texts non-binding as
law, but binding as instructions on the legislature.)

~~~
mkempe
You're inventing a past influence of California as a model for other parts of
the world.

The Swiss constitution of 1848 is modeled after the US Constitution [1], not
after such a thing as a Californian political model -- especially since
California was not admitted to the Union until 1850... popular initiatives
(not just referenda) were adopted in Zurich before spreading to other Swiss
cantons and then being also adopted at the Federal level.

[1] [http://history-switzerland.geschichte-
schweiz.ch/switzerland...](http://history-switzerland.geschichte-
schweiz.ch/switzerland-federal-constitution-1848.html)

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rlvesco7
Verizon has a section of their site to turn off marketing and adjust privacy
settings. Notably absent is the ability to turn off location sharing. I
emailed the privacy department and they totally dodged my question. I still
would like, and think it's important to have, an option to opt out of all
location sharing. I don't care if it's for fraud prevention since that is
easily abused by companies.

~~~
josefresco
For those curious, here is where/how to do this with Verizon:

Login (verizonwireless.com) > My Profile > Privacy Settings

[https://nbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/secure/setPrivacy.a...](https://nbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/secure/setPrivacy.action)

"Customer Proprietary Network Information Settings" was enabled. "Business &
Marketing Insights" was disabled. "Relevant Mobile Advertising " was enabled.

Note, I had to disable Customer Proprietary Network Information Settings twice
after I found it was still enabled after my first attempt.

------
paulie_a
Does anyone know of a way to simply fake location data? I genuinely don't care
if it is technically illegal. Data collection has jumped the shark at this
point

~~~
mirimir
I doubt that there's any way to fake location based on cell towers. That's all
done in the baseband radio, which is not readily user accessible. And even if
you could mess with it, it's probably very illegal. It's certainly illegal to
spoof mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) because that allows theft of service.

It's much easier to disable GPS location capability. But even that's not very
reliable, because there are multiple software levels, most of which aren't
user controllable.

The best option that I know is turning devices off, and keeping them in
Faraday bags, except when in use. So you get to pick which locations get
reported. You're less reachable, but that's a necessary tradeoff. For long-
term storage in Faraday bags, it's important to remove the battery, because
otherwise the device may drain it, trying to ping towers, even though "turned
off".

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _I doubt that there 's any way to fake location based on cell towers. That's
> all done in the baseband radio, which is not readily user accessible. And
> even if you could mess with it, it's probably very illegal._

Also, it would probably cause your phone to simply stop working as a phone -
cell towers need this location data for their fundamental operations as a
cellular system.

~~~
mirimir
Yes, good point. So if you care about cell towers, you can just nuke the
radio, and use only VoIP via WiFi. But even that's iffy, I think, given
difficulty controlling apps. And finally, even if all that works, you don't
really have a "phone" anymore.

------
acjohnson55
What about T-Mobile?

~~~
ofcrpls
[https://twitter.com/JohnLegere/status/1009168217586061313](https://twitter.com/JohnLegere/status/1009168217586061313)
From earlier today.

~~~
acjohnson55
Great, so now I have to count on Mr. Legere's judgment of whether a given
middleman is "shady".

Why is it legal for these companies to sell our data to anyone? This is nuts.

~~~
iClaudiusX
The FCC in 2016 voted to require that ISPs and mobile providers must get opt-
in consent to share or sell customer data.

Then in 2017 Congress voted to overturn those rules and prevent the FCC from
implementing them in the future in a party-line vote in the House and Senate.

Adding further insult to injury, the current FCC chairman, Ajit Pai,
represented Securus (the company that sparked this revelation) in 2012 as an
attorney.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/for-sale-your-
pr...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/for-sale-your-private-
browsing-history/)

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/verizon-and-
att-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/verizon-and-att-will-
stop-selling-your-phones-location-to-data-brokers/)

------
gm-conspiracy
It will now be leased.

~~~
mtgx
Or bartered, just like Facebook didn't "sell" your data to data brokers, the
company just exchanged it for the brokers' own data on you (or others).

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trumped
I was dumb enough to think that anyone would need a warrant to be able to get
that information...

------
colinbartlett
“Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint decide to cut out middlemen and sell directly to
location data consumers.”

~~~
dang
Please don't use quotation marks to make it look like quoting someone when you
aren't. And could you please not break the site guidelines by posting shallow
dismissals? If you have a substantive point, make it thoughtfully instead.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
colinbartlett
That’s fair, thanks dang!

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jrs95
Don’t worry, the (federal) government will still have no problems getting
their hands on it.

Any progress on privacy is great, but it doesn’t buy much as long as
underlying issues aren’t solved. We still have a legal system that has no
issue with nearly unlimited surveillance by the federal government which is
set up by what is essentially secret law.

~~~
rlvesco7
Yes, but they have been bypassing due process by using 3rd parties instead of
going directly to telecoms. And the friendly folks at Palantir et al are only
too happy to share.

~~~
jrs95
The due process is basically just a rubber stamped sham anyways — the only
downside is that there’s a paper trail. But it seems that as a government
agency you can just lie to the FISA courts to get your warrants and there
won’t be any consequences later.

