Apple certainly is heading to the court rooms a lot these days. On April 22, Vikram Ajjampur, an iPhone user in Florida, and William Devito, a New York iPad customer, filed for a judge’s order to bar the collection of user location data on Apple’s iOS devices. They are also seeking to represent a class action lawsuit which could include up to 30 million iOS users in America.
The plaintiffs:
Ajjampur and Devito are also asking for refunds because they wouldn’t have bought their products had they known about the feature, Mayer said. The complaint says the alleged location collection violates federal computer fraud laws and consumer fraud and deceptive trade practice laws in many states. The lawsuit seeks unspecified punitive damages for alleged negligent misrepresentation.
If you recall my personal experience with iPhone location tracking, the data showed only very general time and location information and in many cases, was completely inaccurate. Apple would be best to respond to this quickly and quietly by releasing a software update that has the location tracking log disabled by default and make tracking opt-in.
So far, Apple’s only response has been a terse email from Steve Jobs:
We don’t track anyone. The info circulating around is false.
Sent from my iPhone
Apple should be more transparent about how and why this information is being collected but does it warrant a Federal case?
[via Bloomberg]
