Supreme Court Rejects Verizon Bid For $47 Million Refund of FCC Fine (arstechnica.com) 21
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Supreme Court today rejected Verizon's attempt to get a $47 million refund from the Federal Communications Commission. In a list of orders (PDF) issued by the court, Verizon's petition was denied without explanation. The denial apparently ends any possibility of Verizon asking a lower court to review the fine and order the FCC to issue a refund. However, AT&T and T-Mobile are continuing to challenge similar fines on grounds that selling device-location data did not violate US telecom law.
AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon were fined a total of $196 million in 2024 for selling mobile users' real-time location data without their customers' consent. The carriers sold device-location information to data aggregators, who resold it to other firms. The carriers paid the fines and sought to have them overturned in courts, claiming their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial was violated. Challenges by AT&T and Verizon were combined into a single case, and the Supreme Court ruled against the carriers in June of this year.
The court ruled that the FCC penalty process does not violate the Seventh Amendment because the carriers could have obtained jury trials if they refused to pay the fines and waited for the government to try to collect. The ruling (PDF) against the carriers was 8-1, with Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting.
AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon were fined a total of $196 million in 2024 for selling mobile users' real-time location data without their customers' consent. The carriers sold device-location information to data aggregators, who resold it to other firms. The carriers paid the fines and sought to have them overturned in courts, claiming their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial was violated. Challenges by AT&T and Verizon were combined into a single case, and the Supreme Court ruled against the carriers in June of this year.
The court ruled that the FCC penalty process does not violate the Seventh Amendment because the carriers could have obtained jury trials if they refused to pay the fines and waited for the government to try to collect. The ruling (PDF) against the carriers was 8-1, with Justice Clarence Thomas dissenting.
Too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad, that is, that the fine wasn't two or three orders of magnitude higher.
At the very least, such fines need to represent a serious hit to the bottom line, and an end to the careers of the people responsible for the unlawful activity. More realistically, the fines should come uncomfortably close to being existential threats.
The broligarchs need to understand that while they may run their companies, they don't run the whole damned society. They need to be treated as the grifting mob bosses that they truly are.
Re: (Score:3)
These are the oligarchs that came out of the post-WWII gravy train. The ones that partnered with NSA while building a middle class.
Not the new ones you're thinking of, who are building their own intelligence agencies and attempting to destroy the middle class.
Re: (Score:2)
and ruling somehow only applied to some carriers. So now the supreme court official says different rules applies to different carriers.
Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Good, they deserve pain.
Unfortunately, we'll probably be the ones footing the bill in terms of higher charges.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
The pain of $47 million is about as severe to Verizon as a pin prick. Kind of the cost of doing business.
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You mean like the stasi?
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To be clear, Antifaschistische Aktion was obviously not the direct institutional predecessor of the Stasi, but it was a significant indirect predecessor - sharing philosophy, tactics, Stalin’s influence, symbolism, and even some of the same personnel.
It’s notable that every major socialist revolution with durable long term control has shared the same evolutionary pattern - revolutionary tactics evolving into a highly centralized secretive large scale security apparatus. For example, Mao’s
Hey VZ (Score:2, Offtopic)
Go fuck yourselves.
As if it weren't more obvious (Score:1, Troll)
We already knew Thomas was deep in the hands of telecoms - this shows how deep.
Re:As if it weren't more obvious (Score:4)
After you read the entire ruling - including the full text of his dissent - which parts of his reasoning do you believe to be insincere, or which prior precedents do you believe he applied inaccurately?
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After you read the entire ruling - including the full text of his dissent - which parts of his reasoning do you believe to be insincere, or which prior precedents do you believe he applied inaccurately?
I've read enough of his dissents to know he's a tool of the oligarchy. I don't need to read everything he writes.
Your beliefs are not relevant to this subthread, where the original statement was "this [case] shows... Thomas was deep in the hands of telecoms".
You don't have to read everything he writes to make a comment on this case, but you do have to read he writes about this case in order to make a comment on this case. Or at least, to make a comment that is useful/relevant.
One is not and two is some but three is wise. (Score:2)
Failure to ignore that has never not been idiotic.
If your data matters own at least two copies and verify them.
Not hard.
Lawyers gonna lawyer (Score:2)
"Shut up and pay the fine," - government.
They have absolutely zero logical argument here. Their entire complaint is that they already lost the case but feel like they shouldn't have lost the case. However, they can't appeal it, so now they're just whining about it. I have an idea: STOP BREAKING THE LAW.
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They could probably also have gotten relief on the cheap by donating some smaller amount - maybe 10%-20% of the fine total - directly to Trump or a Trump family member.
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They have absolutely zero logical argument here. Their entire complaint is that they already lost the case but feel like they shouldn't have lost the case.
That is not, in fact, their entire complaint. It isn't even part of their complaint, because there was in fact no "case" to lose. (Which is, as it happens, their actual complaint.)
Reading the actual Supreme Court ruling is the first, necessary step toward understanding the Supreme Court ruling.