Corporate Espionage: A Judge Just Restrained T-Mobile From Scraping Customer Data Off AT&T’s Website

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.

T-Mobile restrained from stealing AT&T's customer data

A federal judge has now issued a restraining order against T-Mobile, preventing the carrier from powering its price comparison tools by scrapping customer data from AT&T's password-protected sections of the website.

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 scrape 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, T-Mobile's Easy Switch tool allows prospective customers to compare their current carrier plans with those from T-Mobile, and then switch carriers 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.

According to a recent survey from WhistleOut, Americans are concerned about the rising cost of their cellular plans:

1. The average cost of a given single-line phone plan is now $76 per month in the US.
2. The average cost of an unlimited family data plan is now $244 per month in the US.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Around 58 percent of Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T customers are now considering switching to a different phone carrier.
6. All three carriers risk losing 230 million cumulative customers due to the 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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