The fines handed out by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to US operators for sharing customer location data are far too little too late. The stark contrast between the FCC’s approach to domestic operators and foreign players gives us further clues about the country’s motives. It has taken six years for the FCC to levy fines on the US operators that sold customer location information, without their content, to third parties. In 2018, an investigation by The New York Times found that third-party companies such as LocationSmart were sourcing real-time location data from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon and selling it to non-law-enforcement agencies or individuals such as bounty hunters. The reports also found that in some cases, the information could be accessed…