An Apple consumer who said the tech giant didn’t provide as much iCloud storage as it promised failed to convince a federal appeals court to revive her contract and consumer protection claims, reports Bloomberg Law.
Plaintiff Lisa Bodenburg filed a proposed class action against Apple after purchasing a 200 GB data storage plan. She thought Apple would provide an additional 200 GB to the baseline 5 GB all customers receive when they initially sign up for the service. However, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said the consumer didn’t allege a cognizable contractual breach or that reasonable consumers would be misled by Apple’s promises.
Other related lawsuits
This isn’t the first lawsuit of its kind. Last month it was ruled that Apple must face a proposed class action accusing the iPhone maker of illegally monopolizing the market for digital storage and causing consumers to overpay for its iCloud service, reported Reuters.
U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee in San Jose, California, said the plaintiffs in the case had sufficiently alleged Apple violated antitrust law by requiring iPhone customers to use its iCloud data storage service to back up core data and device setting files. This is a revival of a lawsuit that was previously dismissed.
On March 4, U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee in San Jose, California, said the plaintiffs in the class action had not shown Apple violated federal or state antitrust law. However, she ruled they could amend their complaint and refile it.
The lawsuit basically argued that Apple forces iOS and iPadOS device users to buy iCloud storage as it doesn’t allow other cloud services to integrate deeply with the system for data backup.
In December 2024 Apple provided TechCrunch with the following statement on the matter: Apple believes in providing our customers with choices. Our users are not required to use iCloud, and many rely on a wide range of third-party alternatives for data storage. In addition, we work hard to make data transfer as easy as possible — whether its to iCloud or another service. We reject any suggestion that our iCloud practices are anticompetitive and will vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise.
Meanwhile, there’s a similar lawsuit in the UK. In November 2024, a UK consumer rights group Which? Claimed that since 2015, millions of UK owners of Apple devices may have overpaid for their iCloud storage.
The lawsuit basically argues that the tech giant forces iOS and iPadOS device users to buy iCloud storage as it doesn’t allow other cloud services to integrate deeply with the system for data backup. The class action lawsuit requests damages of about £70 per individual.
From the lawsuit: Which? alleges Apple abused its dominant position by not giving iPhone and iPad users a choice of cloud storage provider. Instead, it steered them to its own iCloud service, and this led to Apple charging customers excessive iCloud subscription fees.
Everything we do is about championing consumers, here to make life simpler, fairer and safer for everyone. We believe that Apple breached competition law and it has cost UK consumers millions of pounds, so we are taking legal action against Apple to recover the overpayments made on iCloud services obtained on or after 1 October 2015. We want to make sure that Apple, and other big corporations stop behaving in this way.
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