William Gallagher
Another lawsuit alleging that Apple uses its monopoly powers to force users to pay more for iCloud storage has been dismissed.
It's now 14 years that Apple has been giving users just 5GB free iCloud storage space each, so it's surely never going to increase that without some outside pressure. The latest of many attempts to apply such pressure, though, has failed.
Following its filing in March 2024, a class action suit over the amount and cost of iCloud storage has been dismissed. According to Reuters, US District Judge Eumi Lee in San Jose, California, threw out the case — but said the plaintiffs could file an amended version.
The original version of the suit alleged that Apple was violating antitrust laws by coercing users into using iCloud, then effectively making them pay to have adequate storage space on it. This case was a class-action one, whose plaintiffs believed they were representing at least tens of millions of iCloud users.
Judge Lee said, however, that Apple was not violating federal or state antitrust laws. Specifically, she said that users were not required to purchase iCloud storage, and that the case did not demonstrate that Apple is a monopoly.
"[If] anything, Apple's allegedly high prices would incentivize rivals to increase production to take share from Apple," said Judge Lee in her ruling.
The plaintiffs appear to have chiefly concentrated on how iCloud is used for storage, but the service has other key uses. It's behind the syncing of photos, videos, and other user data, for instance, and third-party rivals can't replace that.
Apple defending how it uses iCloud for syncing and for features such as restoring iPhones from backups. The company said that it used iCloud in this way in order to guarantee high levels of security and privacy.
Representatives for the plaintiffs in the case, Julianna Felix Gamboa et al v. Apple Inc., say that they intend to file an amended lawsuit to address the judge's criticisms.
For the moment, then, Apple has won this case, but it may resume in a revised form. Whether it does or not, though, Apple is also facing a similar case in the UK, where a consumer group wants a $4 billion payout for users.
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Malcolm Owen
Amber Neely
Oliver Haslam
Thomas Sibilly
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16 Comments
Another ridiculous lawsuit presented by ambulance chasing lawyers thrown out by competent judges. I’m glad the lawyers wasted all their time and money.
It seems like the Judge doesn't fully understand how Apple limits rivals' opportunity to take a share from Apple, even though she mentioned it in this quote. Other cloud storage providers simply cannot offer the same integration as iCloud does. Say if Google offered a cheaper storage solution than apple with all the same functionality I am sure many would jump to it. And to be clear Google does offer cloud storage like google drive for instance, but does that integrate with Apple devices and let your store your imessages, device backups, icloud mail etc.
Alteratively does Apple provide an easy way to sync your ios device to a computer if I don't want to pay for iCloud. If I am in proximity to my Mac with my iPhone why can these two devices not sync between easy other automatically?
I pay $3 for 200GB of storage
It’s not mandatory to purchase iCloud storage.
so there is zero monopoly.