WASHINGTON (Reuters) - T-Mobile, the No. 4 U.S. wireless carrier, said on Monday it asked a Washington state court to prevent companies from allegedly using fraudulent means to obtain and sell T-Mobile customer call records.
German-owned T-Mobile said it asked the court for an injunction against Data Find Solutions, 1st Source Information Specialists and related firms and individuals. T-Mobile said the companies ran or owned Web sites such as www.locatecell.com and www.celltolls.com that offered such services.
A person who answered the telephone at 1st Source, based in Florida, declined to comment and a call to the company's lawyer was not immediately returned. Attempts to locate a representative for Data Find Solutions were unsuccessful.
The lawsuit was filed in King County, Washington Superior Court, under the state's criminal profiteering laws, said T-Mobile, which is owned by Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGn.DE).
"To further safeguard the privacy of our customers, T-Mobile is taking action to prosecute these online data brokers to the fullest extent permitted by the law," Dave Miller, T-Mobile's senior vice president and general counsel, said in a statement.
U.S. lawmakers, state attorneys general, and the Federal Communications Commission are looking into what laws, if any, were broken by companies that have obtained cell phone records and sold them.
Officials are concerned companies are posing as customers or phone company employees to gain access to call records and then selling them online.
Numerous lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have unveiled plans for legislation to make it illegal to obtain and sell any phone records under false pretenses.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, joined the chorus on Monday.
"The practice of fraudulently obtaining a customer's cell phone records and selling them over the Internet is wrong and must be stopped," he said in a statement.
Last week, the Illinois attorney general sued 1st Source, accusing the company of using illegal means to access and sell telephone records. The FCC last week issued a citation against 1st Source for failing to comply fully with a subpoena and threatened to fine the company.
Cingular Wireless, the biggest U.S. carrier, has said it had obtained a temporary restraining order against 1st Source and Data Find Solutions. Cingular is a joint venture of BellSouth Corp. (NYSE:BLS - news) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T - news)
The two Web sites both said they would not accept queries regarding Cingular numbers.
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