When we asked what you would do after a carrier mishandled your location data, one answer ran away with it. About 60 percent of you picked big fines, the kind meant to leave a mark.
Switching carriers pulled under 17 percent, which surprised me for a privacy story. Another 15 percent told us they checked out years ago because their data is already everywhere.
When you find out a carrier mishandled your location data, what's your move?
The problem with hitting them where it hurts
That is the catch with treating a fine as the punishment. AT&T's penalty here came to about $57 million, set against the $125.6 billion the carrier booked in revenue for 2025.
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That works out to roughly four hours of business, and Verizon's $47 million reads the same next to revenue north of $130 billion. The two cases combined for more than $100 million, a figure that sounds massive until it sits beside balance sheets that size.
You are not the only one doing the math
The mood on the r/ATT subreddit matched the numbers almost exactly. One top commenter called these multi-billion-dollar companies the type to shrug off a $100 million fine because it barely registers at their scale.
Readers on r/ATT did the same math we did on the fine. | Image by Keinebeineboy via Reddit
A reply went further, betting the carriers will just claw the money back through new fees or rate increases. That second part is the fear, and it is mine too, because the people who never agreed to have their location sold tend to be the ones left paying for it.
Where that leaves your next move
The ruling keeps the FCC's authority to fine carriers like these intact. | Image by FCC
So the 60 percent got the spirit of what they wanted. The 8-1 ruling locked in the FCC's power to fine carriers, and that power is now far harder to challenge in court.
What it did not settle is whether a fine a company can absorb before lunch changes how your data gets handled next time. I keep landing where that Reddit thread did: until selling you out costs more than a rounding error, accountability will continue to be non-existent by the wireless carriers.
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Johanna Romero is a Senior News Writer at PhoneArena, covering mobile technology news across Android, iOS, wearables, and the Google ecosystem she knows best. Drawing on 15 years in IT and tech support from 2007 to 2022, she brings a user-friendly eye for the practical features and lesser-known tricks readers care about. Google named her an official #TeamPixel member in 2022, and she also reviews the latest devices on her YouTube channel, JoJo the Techie.
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