The U.S. judicial system has demonstrated its effectiveness after a court blocked the work of 1st Source Information Specialists, which faces a series of lawsuits for selling the telephone records of Americans over the Internet.
Reports earlier this month revealed that telephone records in the U.S. are woefully unprotected, and for less than a hundred dollars information can be obtained about the calls made by any mobile telephone user. To highlight just how bad the situation was, one journalist paid approximately $100 to obtain a list of calls made by former presidential candidate General Wesley Clark.
Now the full weight of the scandal has come down on 1st Source Information Specialists, which maintained a whole range of Web sites selling phone records. A group of cell-phone operators — Verizon, Sprint Nextel and Cingular — have decided not to wait until the U.S. adopts a federal law to protect telephone records and have taken the matter to court.
On Jan. 24 Verizon Wireless filed a suit against 1st Source Information Specialists among others, seeking an injunction against the activities of Web sites selling private data. The cell-phone operator claims several companies have fraudulently attempted to obtain customer records by calling Verizon customer-service centers posing as Verizon employees needing access to confidential customer information.
The anger of the telecom corporation was not only directed at 1st Source Information Specialists but also at Data Find Solutions, which conducted the same sort of business, as well as several other firms selling telephone records on the Internet. All those legal entities are included in the lawsuit. Verizon was virtually forced into taking the matter to court after the operator's clients expressed their displeasure at the lack of security surrounding their private telephone details. The operator clearly understands that it now has its image to worry about.
On Jan. 28 Sprint Nextel said it was suing four units of 1st Source Information Specialists for allegedly stealing and selling its private customer calling records. The suit seeks temporary and permanent injunctions against 1st Source Information Specialists and the four units, which Sprint Nextel claims sell confidential data on the Internet.
A few days earlier, a third operator — Cingular Wireless — managed to secure a ruling forcing several units of 1st Source Information to halt their activities. As such, the online company selling America's private telephone records finds itself inundated with legal battles and with little chance of fending them all off.
