Slashdot Mirror
Apple Tries To Gag Owner of Exploding iPod
David Gerard writes "The Times in London reports that Apple attempted to silence a father and daughter with a gagging order after the child's iPod music player exploded and the family sought a refund from the company. Well, at least they're not Microsoft. Or something."
It's not a bug, it's a feature!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Customer service is a cost. But it also buys goodwill when done right.
It's sad that Apple has done this and marred their customer-centric aura. However, such settlement terms are really par for the course.
Well, at least they're not Microsoft. Or something.
It's as if a billion Fanboys all cried out at once.
The 11 year old wearing such heavy makeup (lipstick, mascara and other stuff I'm too manly to admit to knowing the names of) is far more worrying than the burnt out ipod she's holding
The Times has learnt that the company would offer the family a full refund only if they were willing to sign a settlement form. The proposed agreement left them open to legal action if they ever disclosed the terms of the settlement.
I don't see where it says they can't say the iPod exploded.
I do see where it says they can't disclose the terms of the settlement, which is absolutely normal and common as far as settlement language goes.
Was there something newsworthy here that I missed?
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Why not publicly give the girl a refund and then reiterate the fact that this can happen with ANY Lithium Ion battery, and that the odds of it happening to you are about 1 in 11 million, and even less if you use a modicum of care. Instead they get to meet the Streisand effect, drawing huge amounts of attention to a COMPLETE non-issue, making themselves look like (Godwin alert) Nazis and making the minor tech failure seem like a huge catastrophic problem, surely hurting sales. It really blows my mind that a tech savvy company like Apple can still honestly think that it is possible to hide knowledge in this information age. iDiots...
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
So, large corporations like Apple, Microsoft, those in the RIAA and MPAA, etc. seem to have really hurt lots and lots of people. (And that's ignoring Union Carbide etc.)
Considering the huge number of people harmed by these corporations, I would have expected at least a few people to go postal on them and bomb / shoot-up their headquarters. But that seems to just not happen.
I'm not advocating violence - I'm just trying to understand why we're seeing none, when I would have expected at least one ruined person to want to exact revenge.
Any ideas why?
Doesn't America have anything like the Consumer Guarantees Act? If something like this happened in New Zealand, Apple would be legally liable and have to fix the device or refund the money with no strings attached. If there had been consequent damage to other property they would have to pay for that too.
"it will blow you away" - ign.com
ps, not really IGN
I cant wait for the youtube video of someone reproducing this
I wonder what type of gag Apple is using. Checking out Wikipedia:Gag made me realize just how many there are!
I'm quite partial to the muzzle gag myself.
Perhaps they will be using their new product, iChoke!
Oh, you're talking about another type of gag. My bad.
It made a hissing noise, I threw the device out of the back door, and within 30 seconds there was a pop, a big puff of smoke and it went 10ft in the air
Moral: while it is cheaper, don't buy your iPod in Irak...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I've always thought Apple was just as greedy and immoral as Microsoft.
Why is it alright with you when Dell, HP, Sony et al â" the manufacturers that you buy the laptops you run on â" deal in these shady ways? I'm sure it's not news to you that all of these producers have marketing organs that are rotten to the core, partaking in this practice routinely, but why is it alright with you when they do it, and not when Apple's marketing organ does it? "Or something."
It speaks as loud about you as it does about the marketing practices.
Really. Li-poly batteries in these applications have no housing except the housing of the device; they're a metallized plastic bag full of gelled chemistry goodness, basically. Crunch it the wrong way and you get an internal short and a runaway reaction, which produces a lot of gas - and the whole battery acts like one of those "popping bags" you can get at 7-11 and toystores.
The letter also stated that, in accepting the money, Mr Stanborough was to "agree that you will keep the terms and existence of this settlement agreement completely confidential", and that any breach of confidentiality "may result in Apple seeking injunctive relief, damages and legal costs against the defaulting persons or parties".
Gag?! Sensationalism ftw!
Where I come from we call that buying silence. Everyone tries for that stuff, if there wasn't Apple nobody would care.
The real story here is that we have an exploding iPod and pictures of the result.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
...but you hate-sick trolls and hypocrits just have to make sensationalism over it when apple's marketing division tries to cover up theirs. you sat silent when sony tried to cover up their disaster involving batteries. you say silent when dell did it. when lenovo did it. but now you point finger and gawk.
They're putting a life sentence on myself, my daughter and Ellie's mum, not to say anything to anyone. If we inadvertently did say anything, no matter what, they would take litigation against us. I thought that was absolutely appalling.
Ok, let's start with the "life sentence" bit. Uh, really? Hyperbole much? Are you joking?
Second, and more importantly, it's pretty standard for a company to require non-disclosure when a settlement agreement is made. In fact, I'd wager that 99% of all settlement agreements made have a non-disclosure clause and the 1% that don't are made by people without a clue. To paint it as if Apple is doing something outrageous or vile in requiring this is akin to painting them as vile and evil for doing business - that's what happens. Deal.
I know people want to hate on Apple lately but let's be serious for a moment - this is such a complete non-issue. Yes, Apple screws up from time to time and I'm fine with people calling them on their mistakes but requiring non-disclosure of a settlement agreement is so far from being an issue worthy of scorn...
I don't think Apple can brush this one under the carpet. What if this were to have happend inside an airoplane at 30,000ft. No so much the explosion but the toxic, carcinogenic fumes would inevitably be curculated around the aircraft explosing 100+ passengers and those in direct contact with the ipod could suffer serious burns, eye damage, etc. To place a gag order on those effected as a messure to cover up the defect is pure negligence and would leave them open to possibly pay huge settlements for future incidents. Seems smarter to issue a warning / disclaimer than to leave yourself open. I doubt it would seriously effect sales, people would still buy them anyway.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Fanbois rejoice ! This ain't accident, its a hidden feature. Ipods do that if they find pirated songs on 'emselves OR (next iPods with more "firepower") if your found anywhere near a windows computer (in which case, appl says "you shall not live")
I'm really not the "get off my lawn" kind of guy, but if that girl is just 11, the thought of what she will look and be like at 16 scares the h*ll out of me.
This is what happens when you don't spend enough money at the iTunes store. BOOM
Tell me again why Apple's not Evil ?
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
We at least need a partial disclosure of David Gerard with the hopes that in the future we get a rejection of submissions that include childish remarks like: "Well, at least they're not Microsoft."
For one thing, David is good friends with Roy Schestowitz, the mastermind behind Boycott Novell among other things. This site also happens to be the feeding ground for everyone's favorite Slashdot troll: Twitter. You'll find David making comments in both places and even going to far as to drop in the IRC chat room on rare occasions.
When he isn't trolling Slashdot to drop links to his website or editing Wikipedia to keep it free of people he can label as "shills", David is also responsible for shock sites such as lemonparty(dot)org (homosexual images) and other disgusting things he apparently thinks are funny. You might find that hard to believe without the proper context. Take a look at this unofficial collection of pictures. Yes, that is a man wearing leather pants standing next to a huge red-haired beast. Assholes like David are the kind of people that turn Slashdot into something the rest of us don't like.
It's important in times like these to take a little break from the hipster-doofus lovefest with Apple to remember one thing....
Apple is a publicly traded company and as such their only obligation is to make a profit for shareholders.
That means things like closing off Darwin, heading more and more down their proprietary path and to quell dissent or other actions that may hurt the Apple juggernaut.
so,, if you sold, say, 1.1 billion lithium batteries you could expect a hundred people's houses to burn down.
nice.
While not quite as bad as this - I had the battery on a 12 month old iPAQ expand to double size - enough to break the cover. That in itself is not interesting at all. What IS interesting however is that I actually thought HP would be interested in this (in order to prevent this from happening) but they were not - not at all. I contacted the local HP support, I wrote letters, faxes and emails - with absolutely zero reaction except I could buy a new battery if I wanted. They didn't attempt to stop me from talking - they simply weren't interested at all.
Pics are here: ipaq pics
While this one didn't explode it's definitely a faulty battery (the fault happened over a day or two) and I reckon it could easily have caused some damage to the surroundings if only it had been a tad more violent.
That is one scary 11 year old. She could walk into a pub in downtown Glasgow, yell "STFU and sit the F down you worthess bunch of cross-eyed neanderthalls", then pat them down for drugs and smoke/snort those drugs right in front of them then walk out of the building slamming the door behind her so hard the glass breaks.
And totally get away with it.
to hide the truth simply because it might hurt a corporation?
Apple is known to be arrogant and have a 'screw they customer' policy in place for years. Now they are only extending that policy to refund a minuscule amount that wont even buy lunch to Steve jobs. Why on this earth will a company want the consumer to be silent for rest of the life for asking a refund of a defective piece ? Is there anything called consumer protection law in America ?
Apple does not build high quality hardware (by def, anyone with freq battery problems is not a high qual hardware company; can you imagine the outcry on /. if MS or Sony or anyone else pulled stunts like apple often does with hardware)
Apple does not build high quality software (come on guys - apple OS, for 99% of users 99% of the time is no better then MS, itunes ain't that great, etc etc)
Apple does do something really well
They figure out one thing a customer really wants and deliver it - and since it is the thing the customer really wants, the customer will put up with bad hardware and software
with the ipod, what people wanted is simplicty go to the store, give the guy some money, download the songs i want.
the ipod delivered that for the 90% of users who couldn't figure out bit torrent
when you understand all this, you understand apple
It is funny, Apple's previous marketing plan had also been to be the hip brand to the money hungry Microsoft. It seems Apple has become worse than Microsoft.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
task. ReseArch has sigNificantly deliver. Some of
Just keep saying it... that's what makes it true.
And before anyone says that they are not better than other corporations, let's not go there. The [bad] behavior of others does not excuse in any way the bad behavior of Apple. And Apple should be above all of that stuff anyway.
"A refund in exchange for silence under the threat of severe legal action?" Dear god. A sharp person would post their story on a blog and collect ad revenues himself. But that would be opportunistic and "bad" too I suppose.
And what's with this title? A gag order comes from a court issued by a judge. This is a settlement agreement and a rather standard one at that. But is a settlement agreement an appropriate response for a request for refund? Doesn't seem like it to me, but then again, I'm not a big giant corporation with hungry lawyers to feed.
It was first introduced in iPhones though.
The feature I am referring to is at 0:47.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It's an appalling screw-up: when they explode, there isn't supposed to be any survivor, or evidence.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
But that is the standard method for these sorts of things. Apple is a large company after all, so it will behave like one when protecting its business (where it seems counterproductive or not). Settlements with undisclosed terms are not at all uncommon, and you can spin it out with the demonic language quite easily, but that's the nature of them.
If you threaten to sue, they'll either offer you a settlement like that, or you can take them to court and try your luck there.
If you don't threaten to sue, they'll give you a new iPod - and they'll probably offer that as an option anyway, even if you do say you'll sue them.
No one is considering how the family approached them about the issue, but it's not all a one way street. If you go in there screaming and blazing, you are likely to meet with a frosty reception. If you talk to them calmly and more like a level headed human being, they are more likely to be nice to you, and regardless of how a company "should" act (treating all customers equally), it is staffed by human people who my just take it personally if every other word couldn't be repeated before the watershed.
As a disclaimer, I am an Apple fan, but I am not excusing genuinely crappy things that Apple has done, and may continue to do. This story isn't one of them though.
They didn't try to gag her. They tried to bribe her into shutting up. (yeah, I know, it's a subtle distinction).
Excuse me my good sir, but my iPod seems to have exploded? Would you be so kind as to replace it? Oh, and since I was sitting on it at the time, I'm also missing some naughty bits and it hurts when I have a bowel movement. Would Apple please consider providing me with some medical care or a band aid? Pretty please?
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
If I had my way, all such "gag orders" would become invalid. Often they are used to avoid bad publicity that might be well deserved. This would in no way invalidate slander laws if what was said was false or somehow misleading. As long as what you have to say is true, you should be free to say it. You might have to prove its truthfulness but that is a whole different issue.
An appropriate response to Apple would be:
-----
"To whom it may concern,
Please review the following points:
1. We do not, and will not, agree to the terms you requested we agree to as a condition of receiving a refund for your defective product which exploded.
2. You will refund to us the amount that we paid for the product.
3. You will like it.
If you do not provide us with a refund within a reasonable amount of time, you will face legal action in which you will find yourselves bent over a barrel on the wrong side of a courtroom and forced to explain defend your unreasonable actions.
Please reference the enclosed defective device and purchase receipts for your use."
-----
Honestly, how on Earth could Apple try to get away with something so stupid?
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
From TUAW
---[quote]---
1) This is no gagging order. As nice and evil and meaty as such an accusation sounds, a gagging order comes from a court and no court is involved here. It implies that Apple has gone after this family legally, and that there's been a hearing and a decision and a court order. Quite the opposite. This is just a regular, ho-hum contract between two parties, describing the things they want out of each other.
While the family may be shocked they got a letter, from a legal perspective they should be shocked if they didn't get one. Apple doesn't feel like they've done anything wrong and isn't going to start admitting its products are combustion risks by returning money out of warranty, which is exactly what it would do it if gave money to these people without some sort of settlement agreement.
2) A confidentiality agreement is standard operating procedure. Sure, a letter filled with legalese is a little heavy-handed, but hey, the iPod was out of warranty and when a company agrees to give you money it doesn't feel it owes you, especially in a situation such as this one, it can very well request confidentiality you keep your trap shut about it going forward. It's standard practice even when the company thinks it probably does owe you money. No courts are involved, and litigation is spared where the parties would fight over whether or not the money is owed. And when a confidentiality agreement is sought, it's also pretty standard to remind the parties the possible consequences of breaching the agreement.
You were impressed by being sold an overpriced guarantee?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The people to call when this happens are Failure Analysis Associates, an engineering consultancy that analyzes engineering failures. They started with building structural failures, and they've branched out. They call themselves "The Exponent Group" now.
One of the things they do is battery failure investigation. These are the people your class action lawyer brings in to find out what really happened. Companies with a clue use this to fix their manufacturing processes. Whether or not Apple has a clue about this, or whether they just take whatever their China supplier gives them, remains to be determined in court.
"I sold my cow, I sold my cow; so I have no use for your bull now."
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
Who is going to be the first one that takes an ipod on a plane and crunches the battery? =D Then it will be bye bye apple.
You can take bottles of water on planes. I did it just last week.
The trick is you can't take them through the security checkpoint.
Just pick up a bottle of water in the terminal. Yes, it's more expensive, like everything in the airport.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
... that I need to pony up the $9.95 to upgrade my 6-month old iPod Touch to firmware v3.0, or... wait, where's this going? Nowhere. I just wanted to vent that Apple wants $9.95 for a firmware upgrade that adds a few incremental features. Mine is under warranty, so why can't I upgrade for free? Oh, yeah. Because Apple are greedy bee-stards. Apple silencing the truth doesn't surprise me at all. I hope my pocket doesn't catch on fire now.
Modding down by Apple fanboiz in 5...4...3...
MOAR!
Sauce?
Sets, please.
ToGTFO.
Holy smoke, I'm a middle-aged man. I shouldn't know this crap...
They (or an executive) think a few hundred USD full refund can buy silent? Even I am not ready to sell out at that price.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
Did they tie them to an iPod after gagging them?
They did not issue a gag order. A gag order is issued by the court. This is standard legalese that is probably present in any company's out of warranty defective replacement. This is just over sensationalized crappy reporting and shame on Slashdot for not doing any fact checking before they mindlessly repost someone else's story.
This girls iPod was out of warranty and Apple replaced it, for FREE. Obviously it isn't good that a product blows up but they were not required to do anything as the product was no longer under warranty.
"The Trading Standards Institute said that it could not comment on whether such letters were standard across the industry, but that it could understand that Apple would want to protect its reputation by trying to reach a confidential settlement."
WTF ?!?! Understand why Apple would try and protect its' reputation with a confidential settlement. Yeah God forbid Apple try and protect its' reputation by keeping its' customers happy or producing a SAFE DECENT product that did not EXPLODE, or failing that own up and treat the issue responsibly and show its' customers they actually care, or even try and FAKE it a wee bit. Sadly though the Apple seem to be rotting from the inside out, the skin still seems like teflon and the shit the kick up never seems to stick to them, nor does Apple seem to think as customers or potential customers, we can smell the stink arising.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
That's because corporations have grown bigger and more important then citizens.
Quack, quack.
So Apple has no clothes when it comes to its squeaky-clean fanboi image.
Wow, what a surprise!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The headline on this article is blatantly misleading. A gag order is issued by a court after legal proceedings, and if Apple had tried to get a gag order against this girl and her family, that would indeed have been newsworthy. What Apple did do was to offer the girl a refund for her dead iPod (which they had no obligation to do, as it was out of warranty and there was no clear evidence that Apple was at fault), and as part of the standard paperwork that goes with such an offer it specifies that the girl and her family would in turn not try to use the refund as evidence of wrong-doing on the part of Apple. For a more complete analysis, see:
:P
http://www.tuaw.com/2009/08/03/apple-most-assuredly-not-slapping-family-with-gagging-order-ov/
The Times seriously misreported this story (apparently for the sake of sensationalism to sell papers), and now Slashdot is feeding the fire.
Really...move along. Nothing to see here.
What is 'the truth' that you are saying is being hidden? There is a huge difference between saying 'you may not say the ipod exploded' and saying 'you may not say the ipod exploded AND apple offered me x'. The first one is actually news, and there appears to be no attempt to gag anyone on that. The second part is strictly a business transaction between two private parties, which no-one else has any 'right' to know about. Why would they want to hide the second part? Any number of reasons. The first of course is the large number of crazies who will either CLAIM their iPod exploded, or will actually try to make it explode, just so they can reach some settlement. Another reason is that once someone says what the terms of their settlement are, everyone else will demand the same settlement
Are you saying it is not acceptable to 'hide the truth' just because someone might get hurt? Then please spread the truth and tell us all your personal info.
"My Iphone shot out a flame and all they wanted to do was to get it back in their possession! I got nothing from them. No refund, no discount, nothing! And because I had just signed a 2 year contract, i was only able to repurchase that same phone!"
"I called Apple and they said they would send me a box for me to send it back to them. They said a fuse inside popped! I had to go a buy a new one, no refund, not even a discount!!"
The comments on the times article regarding people having problems with their iPhone's are slightly bewildering. There are at least two where people say their iPhone exploded, and apple asked them to put it in a box and send it back, and then they go out and buy another phone. Who would buy from the same company after such an experience?
within 30 seconds there was a pop, a big puff of smoke and it went 10ft in the air
Why do i have a real hard time believing this?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I have a central problem with TFA?
Has anyone been able to determine if the customer's assertion is TRUE?
All of this customer service noise is just that.
And if there is a problem, that shit is going to come out in court.
Let's just see where this goes before we haul out the marsupial jurisprudence. (Kangaroo court)
WTF do I still have an active account here?
Read the instruction manual. Do not drop or crush iPod.
We're sorry you're the 1 in 11 million whose battery has failed.
This was nothing but a settlement. If they want to publicize the thing, they can go to court. If they want some money/iPod in compensation, then it's standard that the payee asks the complainant to stifle it. If the Apple lawyers wrote the agreement any other way, they'd be guilty of malpractice. Oh, but here (and in Rupert's Times), it's evil Apple arbitrarily clamping down on free speech.
prepare to get mod'd to purgatory by the rabid fanboi's here :) Apple=good, disagree with apple=troll/flamebait :)