All four major U.S. carriers -- AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint -- have each issued the same press release announcing that they are forming "a joint venture" called the "Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative" (CCMI). It is designed to ensure that they move forward together to replace SMS with a next-generation messaging standard -- including a promise to launch a new texting app for Android phones that supports it in 2020. Dieter Bohn writes via The Verge: First and foremost, CCMI intends to ship a new Android app next year that will likely be the new default messaging app for Android phones sold by those carriers. It will support all the usual RCS features like typing indicators, higher-resolution attachments, and better group chat. It should also be compatible with the global "Universal Profile" standard for RCS that has been adopted by other carriers around the world. Doug Garland, general manager for the CCMI, says that the CCMI will also work with other companies interested in RCS to make sure their clients are interoperable as well -- notably Samsung and Google. That should mean that people who prefer Android Messages will be able to use that instead, but it sounds like there may be technical details to work out to make that happen.

Though people can still leave voicemail messages, "Some AT&T customers say they have not had access to their voicemail since the beginning of October," one local news site reported this week: An AT&T spokesperson sent the following statement to ABC11 about the issue: "We're aware that some customers may be having difficulty retrieving their voicemail due to a vendor server problem. We're in contact with the vendor as they work to fix it and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

ABC11 received several messages from frustrated AT&T customers.

"I have been told multiple times that it would be fixed the same day. Today I was told there is no estimated repair date. I don't know what to do. I am a psychologist and people who have mental health issues call me," one said. "They get my message and leave me a voicemail. There is no indication that I won't be able to access it."

"Voicemail is a crucial function on most people's devices. Having it down for weeks is unacceptable," another said. "If they don't fix this issue they will be losing lot of customers. I am been calling daily, but no result."
Slashdot reader amxcoder writes today that AT&T eventually cited their vendor's server issue back on October 9th in their help forum, and that in the 11 days since, "the problem appear to be spreading." After contacting Tech Support on October 20th, it appears that Level One tech support is not aware of the problem, and Level Two reports the problem is affecting Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Maryland, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee. However California and possibly other states seem to be affected as well.

Because AT&T is being tight-lipped about this outage, even to it's own customers that it is affecting, it's difficult to know how many customers this is impacting. No official statement is being sent to customers, nor are customers being updated on progress or given an ETA on resolving the problem. Some online chatter is wondering if AT&T is trying to keep this "under the radar" as long as they can because of something more nefarious, such as a data breach, hacked servers, or even ransomware. Anyone's guess is a good as another without official public statement from AT&T.

"AT&T has been charging business Internet customers a 'property tax' fee, claiming it needs to charge this to recover AT&T's own property taxes," reports Ars Technica. "AT&T has been charging the fee for at least a couple of years and just hit customers in California with an increase that more doubled the fee." From the report: Scott Phillips, owner of a small business called Valley View Media in Santa Clarita, California, signed up for AT&T fiber Internet service and a block of static IP addresses, agreeing to an all-in price of $95 a month. His order summary, which he shared with us, specifically says that the $95 ongoing monthly price includes taxes and fees. The document makes no mention of property taxes. But when Phillips got his first bill on July 1, which he also shared with Ars, it contained this notice: "Effective October 1, 2019, there will be an increase in the AT&T Cost Assessment Charge used to recover AT&T property taxes. The monthly rate will change from 2.92% to 7.00% of your total AT&T Business Internet, Phone and/or U-verse TV monthly charges. This charge is not a tax or fee that the government requires AT&T to collect from its customers."

That first bill included exactly $95 in recurring charges, consisting of $60 for 100Mbps download Internet and $35 for the static IP addresses, just as AT&T promised. (There was also a one-time installation fee of $99.) While the property-tax fee notice on that first bill suggested he was already paying a 2.92% charge on top of the $95, the first few bills didn't actually include a separate property-tax fee. But when Phillips' October bill came, AT&T imposed the 7% property-tax fee, adding $6.65 to the $95 base price. The actual billing increase was thus for the full 7%, not just for the difference between 2.92% and 7%. The report notes that AT&T has been charging the property-tax fee to business customers since at least mid-2017. At the time, the then-new fee was 1.08% of the monthly bill, but an AT&T customer reported earlier this year that the fee was raised from 2% to 6.69%.

In a (vague) statement, AT&T said: "Like others in the industry, we regularly evaluate and adjust our prices based on the costs to deliver our services, as well as costs associated with government and regulatory mandates. We communicated these changes to our customers and will continue to work with them to best meet their needs."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AT&T and other mobile carriers are trying to hide detailed 5G maps from the public despite constantly touting the supposed pace and breadth of their 5G rollouts. With the Federal Communications Commission planning to require carriers to submit more accurate data about broadband deployment, AT&T and the mobile industry's top lobby group are urging the FCC to exclude 5G from the upgraded data collection. "There is broad agreement that it is not yet time to require reporting on 5G coverage," AT&T told the FCC in a filing this week.

As evidence of that "broad agreement," AT&T cited comments by CTIA -- the mobile industry lobby group that represents AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint. "[A]s CTIA points out, service standards for 5G are still emerging, precluding reporting of service-level coverage for 5G networks (other than the 5G-NR submissions already required)," AT&T wrote. That's a reference to 5G New Radio, the global standard for 5G. CTIA told the FCC in September that it doesn't object to the 5G-NR requirement because "the 5G-NR standards are technical ones; they do not establish what service level consumers should be able to expect when using 5G." But CTIA said requiring more than that would be "premature" because "industry consensus is still emerging around how best to measure the deployment of this still-nascent technology." Verizon also told the FCC in September that "adoption of standardized parameters is premature" for 5G. "Calling 5G a 'still-nascent technology' that can't properly be measured yet raises the question of why carriers have been telling the FCC and public that 5G is guaranteed to revolutionize modern life and that carriers need regulatory favors to speed its rollout," adds Ars Technica. "The mobile industry didn't think it was 'premature' for the U.S. government to preempt local regulation of 5G deployments, an action FCC Chairman Ajit Pai took more than a year ago."

According to The Wall Street Journal, AT&T has agreed to sell its Puerto Rican and U.S. Virgin Islands businesses to Liberty Latin America for $1.95 billion in cash (Warning: source paywalled, alternative source), "allowing the telecommunications giant to shave its debt load and move closer to repurchasing shares." From the report: AT&T's operation in Puerto Rico provides cellular, landline and internet connections. It had 1.1 million wireless subscribers. As part of the deal, about 1,300 AT&T employees will be transferred to Liberty Latin America. The two companies said they expect the deal to close within six to nine months. Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands account for a small sliver of AT&T's domestic operations, but shedding the unit will help it work down a large debt load accumulated through its $80 billion-plus acquisition of Time Warner last year. The deal signals progress on AT&T's goal of selling noncore assets, something activist investor Elliott Management Corp., which recently disclosed a stake in the company, is also pushing. AT&T has also sold its stake in streaming service Hulu.

After releasing it in South Korea and the UK, Samsung is finally ready to say when the Galaxy Fold will go back on sale in the US: September 27th. Samsung says it will be available both in an AT&T version and a standard unlocked version. It's a smaller launch than the first time around, as it will only be available in "select" AT&T and Best Buy stores -- plus Samsung Experience stores (it should also be available to order online). The Verge adds: Unfortunately, it seems that the "fixed" version of the Fold is still extremely fragile. And based on a new video Samsung released begging owners to treat their new phones with a "special level of care," Samsung knows it. A new durability test from popular YouTube channel JerryRigEverything proves it. With the first iteration of the Fold, there were multiple issues that reviewers encountered, like dust getting into the hinge and damaging the display, nicks and dings on the soft plastic, and the accidental removal of a thin display layer that looked like (but was not) a screen protector. Samsung reportedly fixed most of these issues with the 2.0 Fold by extending the top screen layer beneath the bezels so it would be impossible to peel it off, shrinking down the gaps by the hinge, and adding plastic caps to prevent dust or debris from getting in.

Despite all that, Samsung's video exhorts owners to handle their $1,000-plus phones with kid gloves. Some of Samsung's requests are more logical: the company advises against adding any additional screen protectors (which could interfere with the folding display). Others, though, like not applying "excessive pressure" to the touchscreen when tapping it, are a bit more unusual for a phone. Samsung also cautions that the Fold isn't water or dust-proof and that the magnets that hold it shut can interfere with other magnetic products, like credit credits, hotel room keys, or medical devices. Unfortunately, despite all those warnings, it looks like the new Fold is still almost absurdly easy to break.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: AT&T is arguing that its customers can't sue the company for selling location data to bounty hunters, according to recently filed court records. AT&T says the customers signed contracts that force them into arbitration, meaning consumers have to settle complaints privately with the company rather than in court. The filing is in response to a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The issue circles around mandatory arbitration; that is, forcing consumers to settle complaints privately with the company rather than in court.

"Each time they entered into a new Wireless Customer Agreement with AT&T, they [the plaintiffs] not only agreed to AT&T's Privacy Policy but also agreed to resolve their disputes with AT&T -- including the claims asserted in this action -- in arbitration on an individual basis," AT&T's filing from last week reads. When the plaintiffs, who are AT&T customers, accepted AT&T's terms and conditions when, say, purchasing a new phone, they also agreed specifically to the arbitration clause, AT&T argues. The Arbitration Agreement on AT&T's website reads, "AT&T and you agree to arbitrate all disputes and claims between us. This agreement to arbitrate is intended to be broadly interpreted." The class-action lawsuit comes after multiple investigations found that T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T were selling access to their customers' location data to bounty hunters and others not authorized to possess it. All of the telecom giants have since stopped selling the data, but that hasn't stopped lawyers from filing class-action lawsuits.

According to The Wall Street Journal, AT&T is exploring parting with its DirecTV unit as customers are leaving the service in droves. From the report: The telecom giant has considered various options, including a spinoff of DirecTV into a separate public company and a combination of DirecTV's assets with Dish Network, its satellite-TV rival, the people said. AT&T may ultimately decide to keep DirecTV in the fold. Despite the satellite service's struggles, as consumers drop their TV connections, it still contributes a sizable volume of cash flow and customer accounts to its parent. AT&T acquired DirecTV in 2015 for $49 billion. The company's shrinking satellite business is under a microscope after activist investor Elliott Management Corp. disclosed a $3.2 billion stake in AT&T last week and released a report pushing for strategic changes. Elliott has told investors that AT&T should unload DirecTV, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported.

Jettisoning DirecTV would be an about-face for Mr. Stephenson, who billed the acquisition of the company as a bold move to diversify beyond the wireless phone business and tap into a growing media industry. The deal made AT&T the largest distributor of pay TV channels, ahead of Comcast. DirecTV is now part of an entertainment and consumer wireline unit that made up 27% of AT&T's $173.3 billion 2018 revenue. For Mr. Stephenson, who has helmed AT&T for 12 years, parting ways with DirecTV would be an acknowledgment that a major cornerstone of his diversification strategy hasn't gone as planned. It also adds pressure for AT&T to deliver on the promise of the Time Warner deal. Mr. Stephenson has signaled he is prepared to step down as CEO as soon as next year, the Journal reported last week. The Journal goes on to say that AT&T may ultimately decide to keep DirecTV because of "AT&T's towering net debt load, which stood at more than $160 billion earlier this year. The cash generated by the pay-TV giant has helped pay down that debt and fueled other investments in the rest of the company."

"Any spinoff of DirecTV would be unlikely until mid-2020 at the earliest, five years after the deal closed, to make it a tax-efficient transaction for AT&T," the report adds.

A lawsuit seeking class action status says AT&T is inflating AT&T TV Now -- previously known as DirecTV Now -- subscriber numbers by creating fake users. From a report: It's accusing the company's management of carrying out the scheme in an effort to make the service look good in the eyes of investors even though it was struggling with serious technical and financial problems. The management did so, according to the lawsuit, by encouraging employees to add DirecTV Now subscription fees to subscribers' accounts without their knowledge or consent. One of the methods employees allegedly used is tacking on up to three accounts to a single customer's phone number -- including those who just signed up for a free trial -- and running their credit card three times. In some cases, customers were reportedly charged for a subscription even though they made it clear that they didn't want it. Sales employees allegedly made and used fake email accounts in both instances.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AT&T expects to lose about 1.1 million TV customers in the third quarter as it faces pressure from an investment group that says AT&T's increased focus on the TV business was a giant mistake. In an update to shareholders yesterday, AT&T CFO John Stephens "said the company expects an incremental 300,000 to 350,000 premium video losses above the previous quarter's premium video results," according to AT&T. Since that's an incremental increase over the previous quarter's loss, that will amount to a three-month loss of more than 1 million TV customers.

In Q2 2019, AT&T reported a net loss of 778,000 subscribers in the "Premium TV" category, which includes its DirecTV satellite and U-verse wireline TV services. With AT&T expecting to lose that amount of subscribers plus another 300,000 to 350,000, the update to shareholders suggests the Q3 loss in the category will be between 1,078,000 and 1,128,000 subscribers. (An AT&T spokesperson confirmed to Ars that a projected loss of 1,078,000 and 1,128,000 subscribers in Q3 is accurate.) AT&T's update to shareholders attributed the expected loss to "aggressively managing costs with retransmission negotiations, some of which resulted in content provider blackouts; and from limiting promotional pricing." AT&T said it has been "holding a hard line in negotiations" with programmers to control costs, but the resulting blackouts of channels is driving TV subscribers away. What's not included in the projected loss is AT&T TV Now (formerly known as DirecTV Now). "AT&T also lost 168,000 subscribers of DirecTV Now/AT&T TV Now in the second quarter, but it didn't say how that service will fare in the third quarter," the report adds.

U.S. wireless carriers have long said they may slow video traffic on their networks to avoid congestion and bottlenecks. But new research shows the throttling happens pretty much everywhere all the time. From a report: Researchers from Northeastern University and University of Massachusetts Amherst conducted more than 650,000 tests in the U.S. and found that from early 2018 to early 2019, AT&T throttled Netflix 70% of the time and Google's YouTube service 74% of the time. But AT&T didn't slow down Amazon's Prime Video at all. T-Mobile throttled Amazon Prime Video in about 51% of the tests, but didn't throttle Skype and barely touched Vimeo, the researchers say in a paper [PDF] to be presented at an industry conference this week.

Viacom and CBS have struck a deal for a merger on Tuesday with an agreement to recombine in the latest entertainment industry mega-deal. From a report: As expected, Viacom CEO Bob Bakish will lead the combined company as CEO, while CBS acting CEO Joe Ianniello will also remain in a top executive position that will have him oversee CBS-branded assets. CBS CFO Christina Spade will serve as CFO of the merged firm. Shari Redstone, vice chair of both companies, will serve as chair of the combined company. The companies had previously agreed on the management setup and the composition of the board of the merged company, with the stock exchange ratio for the deal being the final haggling point that was finally resolved early in the week. The boards of both companies have approved the deal.

Consolidation to gain more scale amid competition from streaming video and technology giants has been a key focus for the entertainment sector in recent years. The CBS-Viacom deal agreement comes after Walt Disney's $71.3 billion acquisition of large parts of 21st Century Fox and AT&T's $85 billion takeover of Time Warner. CBS is also understood to have offered Lionsgate $5 billion to buy its premium TV unit Starz.

Long-time Slashdot reader trolman scared this scathing editorial by security researcher Brian Krebs: If you are somehow under the impression that you -- the customer -- are in control over the security, privacy and integrity of your mobile phone service, think again. And you'd be forgiven if you assumed the major wireless carriers or federal regulators had their hands firmly on the wheel. No, a series of recent court cases and unfortunate developments highlight the sad reality that the wireless industry today has all but ceded control over this vital national resource to cybercriminals, scammers, corrupt employees and plain old corporate greed...

Incessantly annoying and fraudulent robocalls. Corrupt wireless company employees taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to unlock and hijack mobile phone service. Wireless providers selling real-time customer location data, despite repeated promises to the contrary. A noticeable uptick in SIM-swapping attacks that lead to multi-million dollar cyberheists...

Is there any hope that lawmakers or regulators will do anything about these persistent problems? Gigi Sohn, a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Technology Law and Policy, said the answer -- at least in this administration -- is probably a big "no."

"The takeaway here is the complete and total abdication of any oversight of the mobile wireless industry," Sohn told KrebsOnSecurity. "Our enforcement agencies aren't doing anything on these topics right now, and we have a complete and total breakdown of oversight of these incredibly powerful and important companies."

AT&T employees took bribes to unlock millions of smartphones, and to install malware and unauthorized hardware on the company's network, the Department of Justice said yesterday. From a report: These details come from a DOJ case opened against Muhammad Fahd, a 34-year-old man from Pakistan, and his co-conspirator, Ghulam Jiwani, believed to be deceased. The DOJ charged the two with paying more than $1 million in bribes to several AT&T employees at the company's Mobility Customer Care call center in Bothell, Washington. The bribery scheme lasted from at least April 2012 until September 2017. Initially, the two Pakistani men bribed AT&T employees to unlock expensive iPhones so they could be used outside AT&T's network. The two recruited AT&T employees by approaching them in private via telephone or Facebook messages. Employees who agreed, received lists of IMEI phone codes which they had to unlock for sums of money. Employees would then receive bribes in their bank accounts, in shell companies they created, or as cash, from the two Pakistani men.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AT&T is eliminating the DirecTV Now brand name it uses for its struggling Internet-based TV service. DirecTV Now will become "AT&T TV Now" later this summer, AT&T announced today. DirecTV Now (the future "AT&T TV Now") offers a bundle of linear TV channels, similar to traditional cable or satellite services, and AT&T said its core offering won't be changed. AT&T's 2015 purchase of DirecTV, the nation's largest satellite TV network, doesn't seem to be paying off as AT&T hoped. AT&T launched DirecTV Now -- a stripped-down, online-only version of DirecTV -- in 2016, and it was immediately plagued by multiple outages, unexpected blackouts of live local sports games, and missing channels.

While the technical problems got sorted out, AT&T's subscriber gains were short-lived. As we wrote last week, AT&T lost 946,000 TV subscribers in Q2 2019 after announcing a series of price increases. The 946,000-subscriber loss consisted of a net loss of 778,000 subscribers in AT&T's DirecTV satellite and U-verse wireline TV services, as well as 168,000 lost subscribers to DirecTV Now. The losses are much bigger when you look at the past year instead of just the past three months. Including all three services, AT&T's total number of video subscribers dropped from 25.4 million in Q2 2018 to 22.9 million in Q2 2019. DirecTV Now subscribers dropped from 1.8 million to 1.3 million in the past year. The report notes that the satellite TV service will still keep the DirecTV name, at least for the time being. AT&T said the actual DirecTV Now service will remain the same despite the name change. "Our DirecTV Now subscribers will simply need to re-accept the terms of service and their streaming will continue as usual without interruption," AT&T said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The Department of Justice has approved T-Mobile's controversial $26 billion merger with Sprint. And while the agency proposed a number of remedies it says will mitigate the competition and job-eroding impact of the deal, experts say the fixes will do nothing of the sort. From the beginning, the biggest issue with T-Mobile's planned $26 billion merger with Sprint was the fact that it would reduce the number of major U.S. carriers from four to three. Historically, (say in Canada or Ireland) such consolidation results in two things: much higher prices, and a significant culling of jobs as redundant positions are eliminated. The DOJ says it will impose requirements offsetting the competitive harm of the deal. More specifically, the DOJ says that T-Mobile and Sprint will need to offload Sprint's Boost Mobile and some spectrum to Dish Network, who'll then attempt to build a new, viable fourth competitor from these scraps to offset the elimination of Sprint from the market. But experts consulted by Motherboard say the proposal isn't likely to work, and the end result of the merger will still very likely be higher prices and worse service for all. Gigi Sohn, a former FCC lawyer and telecom expert, says the deal "certainly won't lead to a viable fourth competitor any time soon, if ever." She notes that Boost Mobile only has just 8.8 million subscribers, a far cry from the 158 million and 156 million subscribers of AT&T and Verizon, respectively. Building a viable fourth competitor requires far more than just a small prepaid company and some spectrum.

Consumer groups like Public Knowledge blasted the proposal, noting that a far more simpler solution would be to block the deal and force Sprint to find a suitor outside of the merger process. "Sprint is a significantly stronger competitor today than a new fourth competitor could be for the foreseeable future," the groups said. The struggles that Dish and other would-be new entrants have consistently faced underscore that even with the best of intentions and a full commitment to deploy and compete, nothing is certain. Consumers will face considerable harm if the marketplace does not develop as the DOJ envisions."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: AT&T lost 946,000 TV subscribers in Q2 2019, a loss that the company attributed to price increases, competition, and other factors. AT&T reported a net loss of 778,000 subscribers in the "Premium TV" category, which includes its DirecTV satellite and U-verse wireline TV services. AT&T attributed this loss to "an increase in customers rolling off promotional discounts, competition, and lower gross adds due to a focus on the long-term value customer base." AT&T also lost 168,000 subscribers of DirecTV Now, an online service with linear channels that's similar to traditional satellite and cable TV. AT&T said the DirecTV Now customer loss was "due to higher prices and less promotional activity," meaning that customers have balked at price increases and a refusal to extend discounts.

The Premium TV loss brought AT&T down to 21.6 million customers in that category, while the DirecTV Now loss brought that service down to 1.3 million customers. Including both, AT&T's total number of video subscribers dropped from 25.4 million in Q2 2108 to 22.9 million in Q2 2019. The loss of 946,000 TV subscribers easily outstripped last quarter's AT&T net loss of 627,000 subscribers. "AT&T said it expects a similar level of video losses to continue in the current quarter," according to Reuters.

"Media giants are embroiled in yet another fight over TV rates, and viewers are once again paying the price," writes Engadget. CBS' channels in 17 markets (including New York, San Francisco and Atlanta) have gone dark on AT&T services like DirecTV Now and U-verse after the two companies failed to reach an agreement on a new carriage contract before the old one expired at 2AM ET on July 19th. As is often the case in disputes like this, the two sides are each accusing each other of being unreasonable -- though AT&T in particular has also claimed that CBS is using All Access as a weapon.
CNET notes that the dispute also affects 100 CBS stations and affiliates on Direct Now, citing reports that it ultimately impacts a total of 6.6 million TV viewers in the U.S. "A business dispute took CBS off the air for millions of satellite television customers of DirecTV and AT&T U-verse on Saturday," according to a news report (from CBS): CBS said that while it didn't want its customers caught in the middle, it is determined to fight for fair value... AT&T countered in a statement provided to Variety that CBS is "a repeat blackout offender" that has pulled its programming from other carriers before in order to get its way.
"Isn't this the sort of thing they enemies of net neutrality assured us would never happen?" writes long-time Slashdot reader shanen. "Or is it just a plot to sell VPN services?"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Tuesday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a class action lawsuit against AT&T and two data brokers over their sale of AT&T customers' real-time location data. The lawsuit seeks an injunction against AT&T, which would ban the company from selling any more customer location data and ensure that any already sold data is destroyed. The move comes after multiple Motherboard investigations found AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon sold their customers' data to so-called location aggregators, which then ended up in the hands of bounty hunters and bail bondsman.

The lawsuit, focused on those impacted in California, represents three Californian AT&T customers. Katherine Scott, Carolyn Jewel, and George Pontis are all AT&T customers who were unaware the company sold access to their location. The class action complaint says the three didn't consent to the sale of their location data. The complaint alleges that AT&T violated the Federal Communications Act by not properly protecting customers' real-time location data; and the California Unfair Competition Law and the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act for misleading its customers around the sale of such data. It also alleges AT&T and the location aggregators it sold data through violated the California Constitutional Right to Privacy. The lawsuit highlights AT&T's Privacy Policy that says "We will not sell your personal information to anyone, for any purpose. Period."

An AT&T spokesperson said in a statement "While we haven't seen this complaint, based on our understanding of what it alleges we will fight it. Location-based services like roadside assistance, fraud protection, and medical device alerts have clear and even life-saving benefits. We only share location data with customer consent. We stopped sharing location data with aggregators after reports of misuse."

A broker that helped sell AT&T customers' real-time location data says it will fight a class action lawsuit against it. From a report: The broker, called LocationSmart, was involved in a number of data selling and cybersecurity incidents, including selling location data that ended up in the hands of bounty hunters. "LocationSmart will fight this lawsuit because the allegations of wrongdoing are meritless and rest on recycled falsehoods," a LocationSmart spokesperson said in an emailed statement. LocationSmart did not point to any specific part of the lawsuit to support these claims. On Tuesday, activist group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and law firm Pierce Bainbridge filed a class action lawsuit against LocationSmart, another data broker called Zumigo, and telecom giant AT&T. The lawsuit's plaintiffs are three California residents who say they did not consent to AT&T selling their real-time location data through the data brokers. The lawsuit alleges all three companies violated the California Constitutional Right to Privacy, and seeks monetary damages as well as an injunction against AT&T to ensure the deletion of any sold data.