Lawsuit Comes Amid Increased Scrutiny Over Mobile Privacy
by Kunur Patel
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Apple and top app developers are facing a lawsuit alleging they’ve been illegally shuttling iPhone and iPad users’ personal data to advertisers without consent. (Bloomberg Businessweek first reported the filing.)
The lawsuit seeks class action status against Apple and app developers Pandora, Backflip Studios, Weather Channel and Dictionary.com, which were also named as defendants, for alleged privacy and computer fraud violations. Apple and the other defendants are accused of transmitting personal, identifying information, including app use, to third-party ad networks without user consent.
“Some apps are also selling additional information to ad networks, including users’ location, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views,” states the complaint.
Apple did not respond to requests for comment, while the Weather Channel and Pandora declined comment.
“It’s a pretty common type of suit that’s very much in vogue now because privacy is a hot issue,” said Brad Seiling, partner at Manatt, Phelps Phillips and co-chair of the firm’s class action group. “The challenge these suits face is that very often it is clearly and specifically disclosed what’s taking place.”
The complaint was filed last week in Northern California federal court on behalf of Jonathan Lalo, a Los Angeles County resident, and will pursue class action for the “millions” of U.S. residents that have downloaded the defendants’ apps on their iPhones or iPads since December 2008. Three of the four apps cited in the complaint are in the top 50, ranked by downloads, in the App Store. As the complaint stands now, damages total a mere $5,000.
(Another complaint making similar claims against Apple and several app developers, including Pandora, Backflip and Weather Channel, was filed on the same day, Dec. 23, in the same court. “The two cases are independently filed,” said David Parisi, an attorney for one of the plaintiffs in the second complaint, Dustin Freeman. “After counsel learned of each other, we are speaking to each other about the cases.”)
While Apple discloses that personal information may be made available for advertising purposes in its App Store terms and disclosures, the complaint claims that the defendant’s actions exceed the scope of consent given at the time of download.
App Store terms, which must be accepted when apps are downloaded, read: “You may be asked to provide your personal information anytime you are in contact with Apple or an Apple affiliated company. Apple and its affiliates may share this personal information with each other and use it consistent with this Privacy Policy. They may also combine it with other information to provide and improve our products, services, content, and advertising.”
It also raises the question of who exactly in the app ecosytem is responsible for user data and related violations. Outside of Apple’s iAd mobile ad network, app developers have direct relationships with third-party networks like Google’s Admob or Millennial Media, though the complaint says Apple sets the “unique device identifier” that ad networks use to track users.
“The liability of platform owners for the apps on their machines is really unclear,” said Tim Wu, professor of law at Columbia University and author of “Who Controls the Internet?” “This question is a lot like the internet question of the 1990s. No one ever said Microsoft was on the hook for viruses.”
The suit is yet another sign that privacy concerns over online and mobile tracking are reaching fever pitch. Earlier this month, trade organization Mobile Marketing Association set out to create mobile privacy guidelines to determine acceptable and unacceptable practices.
“Frankly, not everybody in the industry does it right,” said Mr. Seiling. “There are some instances out there when disclosures haven’t been good or haven’t been clear.”
Apple Sued Over Privacy Concerns Regarding App Tracking
A Los Angeles county man has filed a lawsuit against Apple, along with several mobile app developers, for allowing apps that transmit private user information to ad networks without user consent.Bloomberg, for one, reported that the complaint, which was filed on Dec. 23 in a U.S. federal court in California, alleged that Cupertino’s iPhones and iPads are encoded with identifiers, specifically the Unique Device Identifier (UDID). The UDID then allows advertising networks to track what apps users are downloading, how frequently they download content and for how long, the report noted.
According to the suit, “Some apps are also selling additional information to ad networks, including users’ location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views.”
The lawsuit not only puts Apple behind the defendants desk – but to name a few others include the creators of: Paper Toss, Pandora (on which the investigation was carried out), The Weather Channel, Dictionary.com and many more.
The class action, or group, lawsuit was filed on behalf of users who have downloaded an app on their iPhone or iPad between Dec. 1, 2008 and Dec. 23, 2010. The Journal went on to report that the claimant is seeking damages, restitution and an injunction that in part requires defendants to provide “notice and choice to consumers regarding defendants’ data collection, profiling, merger and deanonymization activities”.
The lawsuit was filed less than a week after the Journal had raised the issue of personal information being transmitted without users’ consent.
Apple claims that it reviews apps and doesn’t allow them to transmit personal information without permission, but the WSJ’s report shows multiple instances of approved popular apps that are guilty of sharing data. Apple hasn’t yet responded to the WSJ’s investigation, but now that there’s a lawsuit in the mix, I suspect we’ll be hearing something from the Cupertino company soon.
Apple sued over claimed privacy breaches
Apple could soon be staring down the barrel of a class action lawsuit after an American man claimed iPhone and iPad applications can transmit personal information without consent.
According to Bloomberg, a complaint seeking class action or group status was filed last week in federal court in San Jose, California on behalf of Jonathan Lalo of Los Angeles County. At issue are Unique Device Identifiers or UDIDs, which as their name suggests provide a unique ID for every iPhone and iPad and cannot be blocked, changed or deleted. Mr Lalo, represented by a New York law firm, claims that iOS applications are able to use UDIDs to track individual usage habits.
''Some apps are also selling additional information to ad networks, including users’ location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views,'' according to the complaint.
Applications such as Pandora, Paper Toss, the Weather Channel and Dictionary.com are named as co-defendants. If granted class-action status, Apple customers who downloaded an iPhone or iPad app between December 1, 2008 and last week would be able to join the lawsuit. An Apple spokeswoman did not respond to Bloomberg's requests for comment.
Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal tested 101 iPhone and Android apps and found that more than half transmitted the phone's unique ID to companies - primarily advertisers - without user consent or even awareness. Pandora was among the apps fingered by the Journal for sending age, gender, location and phone identifiers to advertisers.
At the time, Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said the company had stringent processes in place to protect user privacy.
''We have created strong privacy protections for our customers, especially regarding location-based data. Privacy and trust are vitally important,'' he said.
The Journal, presumably quoting App Store guidelines, said that Apple specifies that an app ''cannot transmit data about a user without obtaining the user's prior permission and providing the user with access to information about how and where the data will be used.'' The company also apparently regards UDIDs as ''personally identifiable information.''
On a brighter note for Apple, iOS app tracking site 148apps has claimed the App Store is rapidly approaching 400,000 apps. Statistics taken from the site show that Apple has approved 25,452 apps so far this month, the second highest figure since the App Store launched in July 2008. The store passed 300,000 apps last month, according to Apple.
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