AT&T and Verizon are blocking T-Mobile's new "Switching Made Easy" tool that scans their customer accounts to recommend comparable plans. AT&T is also suing, alleging T-Mobile used bots to scrape over 100 fields of sensitive customer data. From The Mobile Report: 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.

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. [...]

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...