Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – A federal judge has clarified the scope of a lawsuit accusing Apple of violating users’ privacy by collecting personal data from iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch users through its own apps, including the App Store, Apple Music and Apple TV. Narrowed down.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, dismissed nearly all claims based on the “Allow App Tracking Requests” setting on Apple mobile devices, although some claims were based on “Shared (Device) Analytics” settings. I agreed to proceed based on the settings.
Mobile device users have assured Apple that disabling the settings limits data collection, storage, and use, violates user agreements and several privacy and consumer protection laws, and ultimately limits user choice. He claimed that the data was collected, stored, and used in disregard of the law.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, is one of a number of lawsuits accusing tech companies, including Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Metaplatform Inc.’s Facebook Inc., of allowing users’ data to be collected without their consent. It is.
Davila said in a 39-page decision late Thursday that Apple has made it clear to users that the “Allow app tracking requests” setting applies to “other companies’ apps and websites.” .
He said it’s therefore “impossible” for any reasonable person to think that turning off this setting would mean withdrawing consent for Apple to collect data through its apps.
But the judge cited Apple’s disclosure that users can “completely disable device analytics sharing” and that users can provide such consent by disabling the “(device) analytics sharing” setting. He said that it was plausible that the government claimed that it had retracted the
The Cupertino, California-based company said it collects data through its settings to improve its products and services.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. Apple and its lawyers did not immediately respond to similar requests.
The case is Apple Data Privacy Litigation, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 22-07069.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Richard Chan)
