AT&T and Verizon Are Fighting Back Against T-Mobile's Easy Switch Tool (tmo.report)
- Reference: 0180278749
- News link: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/25/12/04/006245/att-and-verizon-are-fighting-back-against-t-mobiles-easy-switch-tool
- Source link: https://tmo.report/2025/12/att-is-extremely-angry-about-t-mobiles-switching-made-easy/
> According to a lawsuit, which AT&T has shared directly with us, T-Mobile updated the T-Life app's scraping abilities three separate times in an attempt to bypass AT&T's detection. Essentially, T-Mobile and AT&T have been in a game of cat and mouse. Not only that, but AT&T alleges that T-Mobile is intentionally hiding the fact that it's their scraper accessing an account, and essentially pretends to be an end user while doing so. Apparently, T-Mobile's scraping bot tries its best to appear as a generic web browser.
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> AT&T sent T-Mobile a cease and desist letter on November 24th demanding T-Mobile stop the scraping process. T-Mobile responded two days later refusing, stating that the process was legal because "customers themselves ... log into their own wireless account." On November 26th, AT&T says they detected T-Mobile is no longer scraping the AT&T website, and instead asks users to upload a pdf of their bill or enter some info manually. They note, however, that at the time the app still appeared to scrape Verizon accounts. The lawsuit further explains that AT&T reached out to Apple with the claim that T-Mobile's T-Life app is also violating the App Store Review Guidelines. T-Mobile responded to this complaint as well, making similar claims that the scraping process does not violate those guidelines. [...]
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> According to AT&T, the T-Life app collects way more information than is necessary for a simple carrier switch. The company alleges T-Mobile grabs over 100 separate bits of info from a customer's account, including info about other users on the account and other services not related to wireless service. It's also worth noting that, apparently, T-Mobile is storing this information, not just using it temporarily, even if the customer doesn't end up switching. T-Mobile has responded to our request for comment, and says that actually, AT&T is wrong about the facts, and Easy Switch is safe and secure...
[1] https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-carrier/switchingmadeeasy
[2] https://tmo.report/2025/12/att-is-extremely-angry-about-t-mobiles-switching-made-easy/
"safe and secure" (Score:1)
That response sounds like "Yup, we're doing it. but by arbitrary definitions we keep your data safe and only use it for our marketing purposes, as detailed three layers down into the user agreement you clicked through"
Re: (Score:2)
The definition isn't really arbitrary. It's "You can only have our data if you pay us for it." That's about it. T-Mobile didn't pay for the data, therefore it's a privacy breach.
Want "easy switch"? Try prepaid cell service (Score:2)
Seriously. Prepaid cell service is to traditional plans, what streaming is to cable TV.
You can stop any time you want, switch whenever you want, no penalties, no commitments. Plus, prices for prepaid plans are much lower, like $20-35 per month, depending on the type of plan you have. Of course, you do have to buy your own phone, so if you want that $1,200 premium Samsung or Apple phone, that's on you. But there are a whole lot of great phones for $200 or less, such as Moto G.
I started doing prepaid back in
Because AT&T has their customers privacy at he (Score:2)
They would protect the data against data breaches better if that were their true concern:
[1]https://nypost.com/2025/12/01/... [nypost.com]
[1] https://nypost.com/2025/12/01/tech/atampt-customers-can-claim-up-to-7500-in-settlement-find-out-if-youre-eligible/