The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 on June 4, 2026, upholding the FCC’s authority to impose financial penalties on AT&T and Verizon for unlawfully selling the real-time GPS location data of more than 140 million wireless subscribers to third-party data aggregators — sustaining fines of approximately $57 million against AT&T and $47 million against Verizon as part of a combined approximately $200 million enforcement action across multiple carriers.
How AT&T and Verizon Sold 140 Million Subscribers’ Real-Time GPS Location Without Consent
Between 2014 and 2019, AT&T and Verizon sold real-time GPS location data for wireless subscribers to commercial data aggregators, which then resold that access through downstream chains of buyers with virtually no oversight of how the data would be used. The FCC’s enforcement action found that neither carrier secured explicit user consent before monetizing precise subscriber location as a commercial product — a violation of privacy rules requiring telecom carriers to protect customer data from unauthorized commercial use.
The Broker Chain That Routed Carrier GPS Data to Bail Bondsmen and Stalkers
The carriers sold to aggregators, which resold access through intermediary layers that included bail bondsmen, commercial investigators, and background check services. Each transfer moved the data further from any meaningful accountability mechanism. Investigative reporting uncovered that carrier location APIs had been used to track individuals in real time without judicial oversight — a stalker or bail bondsman with access to the right commercial data service could obtain a subscriber’s precise GPS coordinates without a court order and without the subscriber’s awareness. That reporting triggered the FCC enforcement proceedings that ended with this ruling.
AT&T’s $57M and Verizon’s $47M in the FCC’s $200 Million Carrier Fine
AT&T and Verizon faced the two largest individual penalty components in the FCC’s combined action: approximately $57 million and $47 million respectively, in an action totaling approximately $200 million across carriers. Both companies contested the FCC’s authority to impose forfeiture orders without a jury trial — the constitutional question the Supreme Court ultimately resolved in the FCC’s favor. The gap between the original investigative disclosures and this ruling illustrates how extended enforcement timelines become when companies mount sustained constitutional challenges against agency forfeiture authority.
What the 8-1 Ruling Means for FCC Authority to Penalize Telecom Privacy Violations
The sole constitutional question before the court was whether the FCC’s use of forfeiture orders without a jury trial violated the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee of a jury right in civil disputes. The 8-1 majority held that FCC forfeiture orders are not “final” civil adjudications under the Seventh Amendment. When a carrier refuses to pay, the FCC must file a civil collection action in federal court — at which stage the carrier has a jury trial right. The administrative forfeiture order initiates the process rather than concluding it, preserving the jury right at the collection phase.
Why AT&T and Verizon’s Seventh Amendment Challenge Failed in an 8-1 Decision
The carriers’ argument framed the forfeiture order itself as the binding judgment that triggered the jury trial right. The 8-1 majority rejected that framing by treating the order as a precondition to collection rather than a final adjudication. The decision arrives in the post-Chevron era, when federal agency enforcement authority has faced sustained legal challenge, and the 8-1 margin confirms that the FCC’s financial penalty mechanism for carrier privacy violations remains constitutionally grounded. For carriers weighing future challenges to FCC enforcement actions over location data, 5G network security, or AI data practices, this ruling forecloses the Seventh Amendment pathway that AT&T and Verizon tested across years of litigation.
