AT&T INC
T
Communication Services
2
exclusion reasons
2 themes
This page is part of our public exclusion list — a transparency tool that shows which companies we screen out and why. It is not investment advice, and it is not an accusation. But it is subject to change as our understanding of the facts evolves.
AT&T Inc. exhibits a documented pattern of regulatory violations across multiple domains, indicating systemic compliance failures. In December 2022, the company agreed to pay a $6.25 million penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a lawsuit accusing it of selectively leaking financial information to analysts, a violation of Regulation FD. This followed a separate $13 million settlement with the Federal Communications Commission in September 2024 for consumer protection rule violations. Further demonstrating a pattern, the FCC fined AT&T $57 million in May 2024 for illegally disclosing customer location data.
The company's conduct extends to litigation over its regulatory obligations. A 2025 Fifth Circuit court opinion, *AT&T, Inc. v. F.C.C.*, cited the company's history in a discussion of enforcement against repeat offenders. This pattern of violations and settlements across financial, privacy, and consumer protection regulations meets the threshold for a systemic disregard for compliance.
AT&T operates a telecommunications network that inherently collects detailed behavioral data on its customers’ location, browsing habits, and communication patterns. This data is monetized through its advertising business, AT&T Ads, which uses customer data to target ads across its own properties and through partnerships. The company’s business model turns its essential service relationship into a commercial surveillance apparatus.
This surveillance infrastructure has repeatedly failed to protect the data it collects. In March 2024, AT&T confirmed a data set affecting 73 million current and former customers was released on the dark web. This followed a $177 million class-action settlement approved by a U.S. court in June 2025 to resolve litigation over a separate data breach. The scale of these incidents demonstrates systemic vulnerabilities in AT&T’s data governance.
Research Sources
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Companies appear on our exclusion list based on our investment judgment — not because they've done anything illegal. This is a difference of values and opinion, not an accusation of wrongdoing. Exclusion does not constitute a recommendation against investing in any company, and absence from the list does not constitute a recommendation to invest.
This information is provided for educational and transparency purposes only and should not be relied upon as investment advice. Data is drawn from independent watchdogs, NGOs, government registries, and Ethical Capital's ongoing research — see Research Sources for the full list.
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