Corporate rivals resort to all sorts of crafty ways to gain a competitive edge. Even so, T-Mobile's gambit to scrape customer data right off AT&T's website to power its bespoke price comparison tool was especially bold and dramatic. Thankfully, a federal judge has now issued an injunction against T-Mobile's daylight piracy.
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AT&T had sued T-Mobile last month, alleging that the carrier was using various furtive ways to bypass the security measures on its non-public websites to scrape customer data.
According to the U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer, AT&T was able to sufficiently demonstrate that, in the absence of a restraining order, T-Mobile would likely continue to scrap AT&T's customer data to power its "Easy Switch" price comparison tool.
According to AT&T, the tool allows its customers to enter their login credentials. Thereafter, the tool dispatches a bot to scrape a given customer's data from AT&T's password-protected section of the website.
For the benefit of those who might not be aware, allows prospective customers to compare their current carrier plans with those from T-Mobile, and then switch the carrier for their unlocked eSIM-compatible smartphone "in minutes."
While highlighting the fact that she had never before issued a restraining order in her current capacity, Judge Scholer conceded that AT&T had met the requisite burden of proof and that it was likely that AT&T might suffer harm if T-Mobile were allowed to continue scraping its customers' data.
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- The average cost of a given single-line phone plan is now $76 per month in the US.
- The average cost of an unlimited family data plan is now $244 per month in the US.
- A family using a major carrier instead of a smaller one is now overpaying by over $2,200 per year to get the same coverage.
- Around 42 percent of Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T customers have seen their phone bills become costlier over the past year, a figure which is 7% higher than average.
- Around 58 percent of Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T customers are now considering switching to a different phone carrier.
- All three carriers risk losing 230 million cumulative customers due to high cost of their mobile plans.
Given the results of this survey, it is hardly a surprise that AT&T and T-Mobile continue to engage in one-upmanship, especially as the size of their overall pie is now shrinking.
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