Mikey Campbell
A U.S. district court judge on Monday dismissed a consumer protection lawsuit leveled against Apple that claimed the company inadvertently allowed ad networks to track iOS devices, thus breaching their privacy.
U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh handed down her final ruling in a case involving two California consumer protection laws, saying the four plaintiffs failed to prove they were harmed by any misrepresentation of data privacy on the part of Apple.
From Judge Koh's ruling:
As Plaintiffs have failed to show that there is a genuine issue of material fact concerning whether any Plaintiff actually relied on any of Apple's alleged misrepresentations, the Courtconcludes that no Plaintiff has standing to pursue either the iDevice or Geolocation claims.
As noted by Reuters, the plaintiffs were allowed to move forward with the suit in June 2012, alleging the company crafted iOS in such a fashion that allowed third parties to easily collect personal data without consent. In addition, plaintiffs sought damages for loss of storage space and bandwidth resulting from the alleged secret tracking.
The suit involved the purportedly unhindered access to a cellular-connected device's unique device identifier (UDID), which ad agencies could use to track an iOS device owner's usage habits. Apple imposed restrictions on UDID access in iOS 5 and has since instituted policies to reject App Store submissions that attempt to use the identifier.
Rendered moot in the decision was a motion to turn the case into a class action suit.
The ruling comes as a result of Apple's request for summary judgment in the case, which is actually a follow-up to a similar complaint thrown out by the same court in 2011. That suit claimed Apple knowingly violated consumer privacy rights by allowing ad networks and apps the ability to track the activity of iPhone and iPad users.
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19 Comments
Good move. I thought Koh was a little off her rocker for allowing it to originally proceed, but glad she made the right decision in the end.
Is she the only judge in Northern California?
[quote name="SpamSandwich" url="/t/160942/court-tosses-mobile-data-tracking-suit-against-apple/0_100#post_2440996"]Is she the only judge in Northern California?[/quote] I was going to ask the same thing. Is every case and claim against apple to be handled by judge koh?
Apple says one thing in their privacy statement and does another. If a peeping Tom looks at you through your window and does nothing to cause physical or financial harm to you is he committing a crime? According to this ruling the answer is no. Privacy has no actual financial value. Its value is in the intrinsic nature of your life. Is your life yours or is it for all of the public to see whether you like it or not? The peeping Tom in this case is the advertising networks. It is possible and probable that your personal profile has been created and is linked to your credit cards and computer devices. All it takes is for somebody to coordinate the data from a device to your credit card. Even if you don't make a purchase using your computer or iOS device the profile that is you still can be linked to you. It just takes a bit of study regarding your surfing and buying habits. Radio Frequency IDentifying chips and Global Positioning System location technology in cell phones can tell companies and government everything about you. It is done by coordinating your position, purchases, and online habits. Unless we all stop using the internet, cell phones, and credit cards, we will continue to build stronger profiles telling anybody with the money to buy the data from enough databases exactly who we are.
[quote name="Smallwheels" url="/t/160942/court-tosses-mobile-data-tracking-suit-against-apple#post_2441031"]Apple says one thing in their privacy statement and does another. If a peeping Tom looks at you through your window and does nothing to cause physical or financial harm to you is he committing a crime? According to this ruling the answer is no. Privacy has no actual financial value. Its value is in the intrinsic nature of your life. Is your life yours or is it for all of the public to see whether you like it or not? The peeping Tom in this case is the advertising networks. It is possible and probable that your personal profile has been created and is linked to your credit cards and computer devices. All it takes is for somebody to coordinate the data from a device to your credit card. Even if you don't make a purchase using your computer or iOS device the profile that is you still can be linked to you. It just takes a bit of study regarding your surfing and buying habits. Radio Frequency IDentifying chips and Global Positioning System location technology in cell phones can tell companies and government everything about you. It is done by coordinating your position, purchases, and online habits. Unless we all stop using the internet, cell phones, and credit cards, we will continue to build stronger profiles telling anybody with the money to buy the data from enough databases exactly who we are.[/quote] Take the tin foil hat off.