Sprint Nextel Corp. on Friday said it sued the parent company of four data brokers it said used fraudulent means to obtain and sell wireless customer call records.
Sprint said the company, 1st Source Information Specialists Inc., had its employees pose as customers seeking information about their own accounts, to get access to cell phone logs and phone numbers.
Sprint is seeking temporary and permanent injunctions against the Tamarac, Florida-based company, which runs Web sites such as locatecell.com and celltolls.com.
Sprint filed the lawsuit in a state court in Broward County, Florida, a spokeswoman for the company said.
GoDaddy.com, which hosts the locatecell.com site, made it unavailable after receiving complaints from customers who said they failed to receive service, consumers worried about their data being sold and law enforcement agencies, GoDaddy.com general counsel Christine Jones told Reuters.
"We made the decision, based on input we were getting, to remove the hosting content," she said in a telephone interview. She said the company also hosts celltolls.com but has not heard of complaints regarding that site.
An attempt to leave a message with 1st Source on Friday afternoon was unsuccessful. A lawyer for the company could not be reached for comment.
The lawsuit marked the latest in a series of legal actions against 1st Source. Wireless phone company T-Mobile on Monday sued 1st Source in a Washington state court and the company also faces a lawsuit brought by the Illinois attorney general.
Cingular Wireless, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, has said it obtained a temporary restraining order against 1st Source and another company, Data Find Solutions.
The Federal Communications Commission this month issued a citation against 1st Source for failing to comply fully with a subpoena and threatened to fine the company.
U.S. lawmakers, state attorneys general and the FCC are looking into whether any laws were broken by companies that obtain and sell cell phone records.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee scheduled a hearing on the issue for Wednesday and the Senate Commerce Committee plans to hold a hearing on February 8, the panels announced on Friday. Lawmakers on both committees are drafting legislation.
"Congress must ensure that Americans' phone records are protected and that there will be severe penalties for invading privacy," said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican.
(Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington.)
Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited.
NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at