Kevin Bostic
Apple is looking to block a class action lawsuit that claims the company wrongfully collected and distributed data from millions of customers' mobile devices, on the grounds that the plaintiffs in the case cannot prove their claims.
Example of iOS geographical data plotting. | Source: O'Reilly Radar
Apple legal representatives asked U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh at a hearing on Wednesday to deny a request from the plaintiffs' counsel to designate their case as a class action suit, Bloomberg reports. The suit is the same one Judge Koh said last year that Apple must defend against, though multiple defendants have been dropped from the claims.
The plaintiffs allege that Apple has allowed free apps from its iTunes App Store to gather personal information without their consent. Apple, they claim, gathered data on their geographical locations through apps on their iPhones and iPads even after they had signaled that they did not want such information collected.
Apple claims that the plaintiffs have failed to prove that any tracking resulted in harm to them. The lawyers for the plaintiffs recently dropped their claims to damages, Apple argued, and have only attempted to gain class-action status "in a desperate attempt" to recover fees.
Previously, AdMarvel Inc, Admob Inc, Flurry Inc, and Google had been named as defendants in the case, but all have been dropped since the case began, leaving only Apple.
The suit hinged upon apps' access to a mobile device's unique device identifier (UDID), a number given to each wireless iDevice allowing ad agencies to track usage across apps. Apple has begun restricting UDID usage by apps, as well as rejecting some apps that use the code, but a few are still allowed to access the UDID.
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62 Comments
That sounds liek a pretty bad argument to me. If Apple can win on this, any other company can just harvest any information, whether or not the people signal their opposition... as long as they can't demonstrate that it "causes harm to them". To me, that data harvesting causes harm because it stresses these people. I hope Apple loses on that one (but if it were Samsung, it'd be the same, it's not an Apple issue, it's a privacy rights issue). I'm pretty sure anyone who bashed Brin yesterday about those "stalking glasses" will agree with me that Apple's doing the same mistake as he, here.
Meanwhile that little "problem" where Google allows developers to know your real name and e-mail (among other things) seems to have disappeared.
I don't give a shit if a company knows my location. What I care about is does a company have policies in place where you must agree to share your e-mail address with a third party. Facebook and Google make you share it with Zynga if you want to play their game. Apple doesn't. This I like. This is all I care about.
[quote name="lightknight" url="/t/156250/apple-says-iphone-tracking-lawsuit-doesnt-demonstrate-harm#post_2286148"]That sounds liek a pretty bad argument to me. If Apple can win on this, any other company can just harvest any information, whether or not the people signal their opposition... as long as they can't demonstrate that it "causes harm to them". To me, that data harvesting causes harm because it stresses these people. I hope Apple loses on that one (but if it were Samsung, it'd be the same, it's not an Apple issue, it's a privacy rights issue). I'm pretty sure anyone who bashed Brin yesterday about those "stalking glasses" will agree with me that Apple's doing the same mistake as he, here.[/quote] You're missing the point. For anyone to actually be harmed, they have to: 1. Have location services turned on 2. Use their phone for a while this is the big one: 3. Give their phone to someone else who can manually access this history. and 4. Since the history is only one of which cell towers you were near, you have to show the harm from someone knowing retroactively (after they have access to your phone) where you were within a 5 mile radius. It's just not that easy to figure out how someone is harmed by someone knowing that last November they visited Boston.
[quote name="EricTheHalfBee" url="/t/156250/apple-says-iphone-tracking-lawsuit-doesnt-demonstrate-harm#post_2286149"]Meanwhile that little "problem" where Google allows developers to know your real name and e-mail (among other things) seems to have disappeared. [/quote] Of course. The analysts are still busy driving AAPL down and pumping Google up.