yes, a private company that has bought the information can just chose to share it for a fee with anybody it likes. Why would a judge be involved in that?
I have plenty of options besides cell phones. I could have a landline, or get my ham license, or pen a letter!
I'm just a subscriber to a private service, after all.
If that is true then that means there is no data privacy protection in the US?
There may be some very specific data privacy laws (like two-party consent states), but yeah, you should assume no data privacy protection in the US.
I have a bit of an issue with that, since one generally expects that they can license any data they own, and it makes things like model releases confusing.
And the laws seem to define new private spaces that formerly didn't have expectation of privacy for most people.
But perhaps it's necessary anyway to prevent even bigger issues.
I can definitely see the problem with a cell company being able to sell data to someone's abusive stalker, even though in general I don't like censorship of observation, for the same reason I don't like ag-gag.
Cambridge Analytica Style desinformation targeting is just one option. Personal location and contact info can easily be used for criminal or political abuse.