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Apple accused of trapping and ripping off 40m iCloud customers:
Apple accused of trapping and ripping off 40m iCloud customers
Consumer group Which? says the legal action - which it has launched - could result in a £3bn payout if it is successful, with the average customer getting around £70.
Apple has rejected the suggestion its practices are anti-competitive, saying users are not required to use iCloud. It said many customers rely on third-party alternatives, and insists it "works hard to make data transfer as easy as possible".
It is another example of the "growing tide of large class actions against big tech" which has "operated without sufficient constraint", Toby Starr from legal firm Humphries Kerstetter told the BBC.
Facebook, Google, gaming giant Steam and the UK's leading mobile providers are among the others facing legal claims at the same court, the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
"Although most of these claims are in their infancy and take a long time to resolve, there will be more decisions coming out over the next couple of years and there will be settlements - these will start to affect the tech giants' businesses," said Mr Starr.
Users of Apple products get a small amount of digital storage for free – and after that are encouraged to pay to use its iCloud service to back up photos, videos, messages, contacts and all the other content which lives on their device.
Prices for this storage range from £0.99 a month for 50GB of space to £54.99 a month for 12TB.
Apple does not allow rival storage services full access to its products.
It says that is for security reasons - but it also contributes to the company's enormous revenues.
Which? says over a period of nine years dating back to 2015 Apple has been effectively locking people into its services - and then overcharging them.
"By bringing this claim, Which? is showing big corporations like Apple that they cannot rip off UK consumers without facing repercussions," the body's chief executive Anabel Hoult said.
"Taking this legal action means we can help consumers to get the redress that they are owed, deter similar behaviour in the future and create a better, more competitive market."
Apple has strongly denied Which's accusations.
"We reject any suggestion that our iCloud practices are anti-competitive and will vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise," it said in a statement.
(Score: 2) by fab23 on Sunday November 17, @07:27PM (2 children)
It looks like you have mixed TB with GB. It is ~60.- money (CHF, GBP, EUR, USD) / month for 12 TB (not GB), full list at iCloud+ plans and pricing [apple.com]. In my opinion the pricing for iCloud storage is not expensive at all, e.g. ~3.- / month for 200 GB or ~10.- / month for 2 TB, which for most is a lot of storage!
I am using iPhone and Mac since a long time, they are interconnected with the useful features they have. But I mostly do not use iCloud Storage, only for small things like syncing my eBooks and some other settings of some Apps for which the free storage is more then enough. I do run my own CalDAV/CardDAV server for calendar and contacts. Backup of the phone can still be done with Finder (previously with iTunes) to a Mac.
(Score: 2) by DrkShadow on Sunday November 17, @07:30PM (1 child)
$10/2000GB is about $1/200GB (not $3) or about 0.5c/GB, isn't it? That's what I based my comparisons on. S3 is 2.3c/GB, so Apple is a quarter of the s3 pricing, not counting AWS egress fees.
At smaller bundles perhaps they charge more (more likely to use the full amount, I guess -- who's going to fit 12TB of data onto a phone, or a Macbook with 1-2TB soldered on storage?)
(Score: 2) by fab23 on Sunday November 17, @07:54PM
You are right, I should read more carefully.
Depending on how you setup the usage of iCloud storage on a Mac, it can also sync Documents and other local folders into it. When local space runs out, it starts to keep only recently used documents locally. I also guess that people doing RAW video shooting with 4K on iPhones may use the larger plans soon as well.
On the other hand the storage can also be shared with up to 5 family members.