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27,000 South Koreans Sue Apple

Posted by samzenpus on from the one-bad-apple dept.

jfruhlinger writes "You may have already forgotten the iPhone location-tracking furor, but 27,000 South Koreans haven't! They (or the lawyers recruiting them) have launched a class action suit against Apple due to the 'emotional distress' suffered. The litigants are seeking around $1,000 apiece in damages. From the article: 'Apple has faced complaints and criticisms since it said in April that its iPhones were storing locations of nearby cellphone towers and Wi-Fi hot spots for up to a year. Such data can be used to create a rough map of the device owner's movements.'"

6 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Shoulda bought a Samsung by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Isn't it weird that Korea being home to Samsung and LG is where this lawsuit is happening?
    Take that, apple.

  2. User error by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    If their iPhones were tracking them then they were probably just holding them wrong.

  3. Dear Korean Friends by Compaqt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've come to the belated realization that iPhones and (for the most part) Android phones are hardly more than devices for tracking your every move, thought, and desire for the purpose of selling stuff to you.

    It's too bad you got taken in by the rows of shiny icons.

    Also, in South Korea, only old people use iPhones.

    --
    I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
  4. It is pretty impressive how Apple deflected that by _xeno_ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is pretty impressive how Apple was able to wriggle out of that one. Nope, your phone "isn't tracking you," it's just a cache of cell towers used to speed GPS.

    OK, fine. Then why does their privacy policy still allow Apple to collect your location data?

    Oh, because that's for sending you local ads if you use an app that uses iAd, and for building Apple's database of Wi-Fi access points and GPS coordinates to allow iDevices without GPS to generate a location. (To provide local ads for apps that use iAd. Also for the user's benefit on occasion.)

    But apparently that's OK, because we poor peons no longer have access to the location data Apple's recording, which includes a unique identifier so that they can track iDevices.

    No problem at all with that, apparently.

    --
    You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
  5. this is a by wervr · · Score: 4, Funny

    legal zerg rush

  6. Re:Possibly distressing in some countries by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Informative

    North Koreans would have a valid complaint here. If they had cell phone towers.

    Typical imperialist revisionism. Beloved Leader Kim Jong Il invented cellular technology, you mindless tool of capitalism.

    --
    #DeleteChrome