Key facts
- The Supreme Court rejected Verizon's request for a $47 million refund of an FCC fine.
- Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile were collectively fined $196 million in 2024 for selling customer location data without consent.
- The carriers had argued their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial was violated by the FCC's penalty process.
- The Supreme Court previously ruled 8-1 that the FCC's penalty process does not violate the Seventh Amendment.
- Verizon claimed it was unaware it had the option to not pay the fine and seek a jury trial.
- AT&T and T-Mobile are continuing to challenge their fines on the merits of whether selling location data is illegal.
The Supreme Court has rejected Verizon's attempt to obtain a $47 million refund of a fine imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The denial, issued without explanation, effectively ends Verizon's bid to have a lower court review the penalty. This decision follows a previous Supreme Court ruling where the court, by an 8-1 vote, determined that the FCC's penalty process does not violate the Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.
Verizon, along with AT&T and T-Mobile, was fined a total of $196 million in 2024 for selling real-time device-location data without customer consent. The carriers sold this information to data aggregators, who then resold it. Verizon had argued that it was unaware of its option to refuse payment and pursue a jury trial, claiming the FCC misled it about the binding nature of the fine. However, the court's rejection of its petition means Verizon has no further recourse to challenge the fine's legality.
Despite Verizon's setback, AT&T and T-Mobile are continuing their legal challenges. They maintain that selling device-location data does not violate US telecom law. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals had previously rejected Verizon's arguments, including its claim that Section 222 of the Communications Act only covers call-location data and not broader device-location information. The appeals court found that such data qualifies as Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) and is subject to privacy protections. News reports indicated that the misused location data was accessed by law enforcement without legal process. While the major carriers have stated they discontinued these data-sharing programs, they continue to assert the illegality of the fines.