https://www.wired.com/story/carriers-sell-location-data-thir...

> Amid the ensuing customer outrage and mounting congressional scrutiny, the major US carriers promised to stop selling user location data to outside brokers. Which is part of what makes the Motherboard story so troubling: Seven months later, it remains easy and cheap for anyone to buy data about a phone's location without a warrant or any justification at all. All you need is a phone number to target. In Motherboard's case it was a T-Mobile customer, but data brokers claim to be able to provide location information from all the major carriers.

Pledging to stop is pretty standard operating procedure whenever bad privacy practices cause a PR stink, but it's quite common to see the same company with the same PR stink a year or two later. Pledges to stop often have more to do with the media cycle than any actual intention to stop.

"SUPL 2.0 features the use of geographical ‘triggers’, which enable the UE to report its position if it enters, leaves, or is within a particular area. Triggering may be enabled either by the network or by the SET, with the two entities agreeing on trigger criteria. Area Event triggers enable key mobile applications such as Check-in services, shopping deals and offers, location based advertising, and child location."