CTIA and Chamber Back Verizon's Challenge of FCC Data Fine

three major wireless carriers for allegedly not safeguarding data on customers' real-time locations years earlier (see 2404290044). Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington dissented. The two groups earlier filed in support of AT&T’s challenge of its fine in the 5th Circuit (see 2408060035). “For years, wireless service providers enabled beneficial, legitimate uses of customer location data with their customers’ consent,” CTIA said in a brief filed this week in docket 24-1733. These uses included the provision of emergency assistance and fraud detection, CTIA said. “For years, the FCC was aware of these services, never once suggesting an issue,” the group said: “But after a third party not before this Court misused a location service, the Commission changed its mind and, in the Order under review, declared Verizon’s location-based services unlawful -- levying a $46.9-million forfeiture to boot. The Commission’s newfound interpretation is patently unlawful and flouts both the text of the statute and decades of the agency’s own precedent.” The FCC “abused its investigative and enforcement authority to violate the company’s Seventh Amendment right to a jury,” the Chamber told the court. The agency then “announced and applied novel legal interpretations of the Communications Act to calculate and impose staggering forfeitures for activities that were not at the time of conduct a violation of any agency rule or law.”