Apple Accused of Trapping 40 Million UK Customers Into iCloud Service

Apple is facing an almost £3 billion ($3.78 billion) lawsuit after British consumer group Which? on Thursday alleged that the company breached competition law by locking millions of its customers out of its iCloud service and charging them "rip-off prices."

iCloud General Feature
Apple users receive 5GB of free storage to back up photos, messages, and other content, and are then encouraged to pay for the service once they exceed the limit. Prices for extra storage in the UK range from £0.99 a month for 50GB of space to £54.99 a month for 12TB.

Which? alleges that the company makes it difficult for customers to use alternative cloud storage providers "by giving its ‌iCloud‌ storage service preferential treatment," and "'trapping' customers with Apple devices into using ‌iCloud‌."

The consumer group filed the legal action with the Competition Appeal Tribunal, and said it was seeking damages for 40 million Apple users in the UK. If successful, the lawsuit could result in a £70 payout per customer. According to the Consumer Rights Act 2015, all those eligible are automatically included in the claim unless they choose to opt out.

Which? said it was urging Apple "to resolve this claim without the need for litigation by offering consumers their money back and opening up iOS to allow users a real choice for cloud services." Which? CEO Anabel Hoult commented: "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 in a statement said it rejected the suggestion that its ‌iCloud‌ practices are anticompetitive, vowing to "vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise." Apple said it works hard to make data transfer as easy as possible, and that nearly 50% of its customers do not need nor pay for an ‌iCloud‌+ subscription. It added that its pricing was in line with that of other cloud storage providers.

(Via Reuters.)

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Top Rated Comments

nostradumbass Avatar
23 weeks ago
The British economy:

Criminal level rents draining society = great, let's get rich on this pyramid scheme even if it harms most people and makes young people fear for their future

iCloud, which is free, optional and has various plans = OMG this is a crime

And that's why Britain's tech sector died in the 80s.

(I noticed a lot of the comments about this on sites such as the BBC come from a specific type of troll farms who always try to convince people to use weaker and less secure software in order to make cyber attacks and ID theft easier. Always be weary of anons who take advantage of you.)
Score: 52 Votes (Like | Disagree)
markfc Avatar
23 weeks ago
Thanks, but I’ll keep my data on Apple servers.
Score: 51 Votes (Like | Disagree)
breenmask Avatar
23 weeks ago
oh because when I buy tiny house and start accumulating things, I blame the city for making it hard for me to move out and/or to use public storage.

/s
Score: 38 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Rradcircless Avatar
23 weeks ago
Giving you a bad deal (5gb free storage) isn’t anticompetitive when Google and Microsoft both have pretty well integrated cloud storage systems across the Apple ecosystem. I know they're good, I’ve used both but ultimately came home to iCloud+.
Score: 36 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JonathanX64 Avatar
23 weeks ago
It's still incredibly sad that by ~2010, capitalists went with cloud direction instead of making well-integrated self-hosting solutions.

Imagine having all your stuff on a Mac mini at home, including phone backups, contacts, etc. Free forever, fully yours, just don't forget to replace hard drives once in a while.

I'm certain that every person could easily manage that setup, just like all the "normie" people used to pirate music for their iPods back in the day.

But of course, it's harder for police and for data brokers to access data that way, so here we are.
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
adamw Avatar
23 weeks ago
This sounds like it may be a shakedown attempt to get a payout from Apple by some lawyers, who will likely get the most out of the settlement. Perhaps this will cause Apple to give 10GB iCloud storage for free to every user worldwide or something like that to settle this matter.
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)