Apple is being taken to court over allegations strict privacy settings introduced in its App Store were merely a guise to take share in the digital advertising space.
Two proposed class action suits, filed in California and New York federal court, claim breach of implied contract, invasion of privacy, and unjust enrichment.
The Californian suit also adds unfair competition, and takes aim at Apple’s concentrated campaign to assure users their privacy is being protected by the company, despite collecting “an enormous wealth of data and personal information” themselves.
It further claims the goal of these privacy setting changes was to “protect its own ad revenue at the expense of other competitors such as Facebook.”
Beginning with iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5, released in April 2021, third-party apps are now required to ask a user’s permission to track them across apps and websites owned by other companies, and collect data.
Not surprisingly, the majority of users opted out of such tracking, and as a result, advertising revenue plummeted across the industry.
Apple then went on a public campaign, with advertising slogans such as, “It’s your data. iPhone helps keep it that way.”
“At Apple, we respect your ability to know, access, correct, transfer, restrict the processing of, and delete your personal data,” the company states on its website.
The suit filed in California accuses Apple of deceiving users into believing that their data is protected with the “Allow Apps to Request to Track” feature.
“Nonetheless, Apple contradicts these and other explicit privacy promises by tracking and collecting large amounts of personal information in violation of Mobile Device Consumers’ wishes.”
It points to CEO Tim Cook as saying, “Privacy is a fundamental right and we build it into all products and services at Apple. You should be in control of your data — not the highest bidder.”
“Apple knows that such assurances and promises regarding consumer user privacy and disabling or termination of such tracking and interception are false and misleading,” reads the complaint.
“Apple flagrantly engages in such conduct even though it knows that consumers want to keep their User Data private, and expect and demand control over their own such data, out of an increasing concern that companies are using such information without their knowledge or permission, and, worse yet, profiting from such exploitative tracking,” the suit reads.
“Hypocritically, Apple has portrayed and has attempted to distinguish itself from competitors by various representations to its Mobile Device Consumers that they are able to control the information stating: “At Apple, we respect your ability to know, access, correct, transfer, restrict the processing of, and delete your personal data.”
Apple said in a statement that, “identifiable information is never shared with third parties and is not used to track users across apps and websites.
“All data used for advertising purposes is disassociated from personal identifiers, and Apple Advertising operates on the basis of de-identified data.”
