Apple hit with £3 billion claim over iCloud pricing and packaging practices
- Reference: 1731565751
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/11/14/apple_sued_icloud_uk/
- Source link:
The [1]claim alleges that the iPhone maker locked customers into iCloud and charged them handsomely for the privilege. Which? claims that around 40 million Apple customers in the UK who have obtained iCloud services in the last nine years could be affected, charging that Apple abused its market dominance "to gain an unfair advantage."
According to Which? "A key tactic to achieve this has been encouraging users to sign up to iCloud for storage of photos, videos and other data while simultaneously making it difficult to use alternative providers, including because Apple does not allow customers to store or back up all of their phone's data with a third-party provider.
[2]
"iOS users then have to pay for the service once photos, notes, messages and other data go over the free 5GB limit."
[3]
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Anyone who has had to deal with an iPhone sending multiple reminders about the device being unable to create a backup due to insufficient iCloud capacity – and wearily signed up to iCloud to stop the warnings – will be very familiar with these tactics.
Apple has [5]faced allegations elsewhere regarding some sharp practices over its iCloud storage – namely that it operates a near monopoly, with third parties not given the same access as the fruit cart, and that customers are encouraged to sign up for iCloud over alternatives.
[6]Europe to force Apple to help rivals connect to iOS, iPadOS
[7]EU irate about geo-locked Apple IDs
[8]Apple Intelligence won't be available in Europe because Tim's terrified of watchdogs
[9]Under pressure from Europe, Apple makes iOS browser options bit more reasonable
The Register asked Apple to comment on the Which? claim, but the iGiant has yet to respond. When similar questions were asked earlier this year in the US, it responded that the cloud storage marketplace offers many alternatives.
Apple is hardly alone in urging its customers to use its cloud storage services. Microsoft [10]has come under regulatory scrutiny in recent years over its habit of packaging its cloud storage service, OneDrive, with Windows. As recently as 2024, the software titan [11]was criticized for making OneDrive ever more difficult to avoid during the Windows installation process.
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In 2023, Apple increased the price it charged UK consumers by as much as 29 percent, according to Which? [13]Customers were not amused .
Which? is seeking damages for customers who have obtained iCloud services since October 1, 2015. UK customers will automatically be part of the claim unless they [14]tell Which? they wish to opt out . As well as hoping for an average compensation of £70 per customer, Which? also wants Apple to open up iOS to allow users a choice of cloud services.
Tim Cook and co were [15]recently forced to open up other elements of iOS , such as the browser, in response to Europe's Digital Markets Act. Permitting a user to select an alternative cloud provider able to work at the same level at iCloud therefore seems technically feasible. Apple is, however, likely to resist any such move in the interests of security – and its bottom line.
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The next step will be for Which? to get permission from the Competition Appeal Tribunal to act as class representative, and for the claim to proceed on a collective basis. ®
Get our [17]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.which.co.uk/policy-and-insight/article/which-launches-3-billion-action-against-apple-over-competition-law-breaches-acY7c0t4g3Gu
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZzXYWNFJjItPH3TcefDsqQAAAMM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZzXYWNFJjItPH3TcefDsqQAAAMM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZzXYWNFJjItPH3TcefDsqQAAAMM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/apple-asks-us-court-dismiss-implausible-icloud-monopoly-lawsuit-2024-05-13
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/19/apple_ios_ipad_os_eu/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/13/eu_apple_id/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/apple_intelligence_eu/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/24/apple_eu_browser_defaults/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/29/onedrive_antitrust/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/microsoft_makes_onedrive_avoidance_trickier/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZzXYWNFJjItPH3TcefDsqQAAAMM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254961240?sortBy=rank
[14] https://www.cloudclaim.co.uk/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/25/apple_eu_dma/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZzXYWNFJjItPH3TcefDsqQAAAMM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Amazon Photos
My personal iPhone backs photos up automagically to Amazon Photos. Does an amazing job of sorting them too.
Who do I trust most? Cook, Bezos, Zuckerberg or Nadella?
Personally I am very comfortable in Cook’s walled garden. I knew when I moved all my own IT systems to Apple that my options would be slightly limited but I trade that for security and privacy (perceived or not). My IPhone, IPad and Mac all talk to each other, everything just works and iCloud for £2.50 per month is not expensive. Because of work I have to have Excel and Word on the system and they really know how to charge!
Basically who would I rather have looking after my data? Cook, Bezos, Zuckerberg or Nadella?
Re: Who do I trust most? Cook, Bezos, Zuckerberg or Nadella?
Personally I am very comfortable in Cook’s walled garden.
Somehow reminds me of:
“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
CMA
So they are doing Chocolate-teapot Market Authority's job.
Can you think of more useless government body than CMA?
0.64 pence a month rip off…. Ohhh the scandal
This a completely bogus filing.
There are multiple ways to back up your data from an iPhone.
However backup/restore is a service not just simple data transfer.
If Which’s understanding of what Apple’s cloud service is this shallow, I look forward to them being laughed out of court.
Will their next law suit be that a car manufacturer has to be able to backup the details/config of your vehicle to Google instead of BMW?
Idiotic!
The basic level of iCloud is free and I used it for years so when I needed to back up and share some larger files I subscribed to the next level, 50GB for 99p a month.
Not a huge amount to pay and I’ll keep it running even though I don’t always need that much storage. Easy enough to cancel.
There is a caveat though. Some images and some audio might get a dropout or two but that’s a problem with every hosting and storage site I’ve ever used probably caused during the upload or download.
As stated above. Which creepy uncles lap are you going to choose to sit on?
Apple? Locking customers in?
Apple? Locking customers in to their ecosystem? Shurely shome mishtake?
The demands on El Reg reader's fainting couches will surely be huge this morning! ;-)
On a more serious note although my on-call phone is an iPhone I've never really bothered doing anything about backups.
On my personal Android phone it's a doddle to use other storage systems for backing up photos, videos etc - in fact it's felt at times like every other app wants to do it. I think I currently have both Google Photos and Flickr backing up my photos. I recall OneDrive, Dropbox (when I used it) and others also offering.
Is this a permissions thing where Apple make it difficult - if not impossible - to do? Or is it a guidelines & policy thing where Apple discourage apps from offering the service, like they don't want alternative payment options?
Because I'm actually a little surprised that this could be a genuine complaint. As I said, on Android backing up such things to somewhere else has been the norm for almost as long as I've been using Android. So I'm genuinely curious to hear iOS user's opinions and experiences...