Lawsuits against Apple are filed all the time, all over the world. But one proposed class action over the company’s alleged “deceptive” iCloud storage plans was just shot down by a US appeals court. Here are the details.
Plaintiff claimed advertised iCloud storage amounts were misleading, but court disagreed
Jonathan Stempel writes at Reuters:
A U.S. federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected claims by Apple customers that the iPhone maker gave them less iCloud data storage than they paid for when upgrading. In a 3-0 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said reasonable consumers in the proposed class action would not have been misled by Apple’s promises about storage capacity in its iCloud+ plans. The plaintiff Lisa Bodenburg said she paid $2.99 a month for 200 GB of storage, believing Apple would add it to the 5 GB that all iCloud customers receive, and was shortchanged because Apple gave her only 200 GB of total storage, not 205 GB.
The ruling in this case emphasized that Apple was not being deceptive or misleading in its advertising of paid iCloud storage.
Essentially, Apple saying that customers can pay to receive “additional storage” isn’t, per the appeals court, the same as saying “200 GB of additional storage.”
Per the court, the language isn’t ambiguous or deceiving. Paid iCloud storage plans do offer “additional storage” and clearly state how much storage you’ll receive in total.
Apple may have avoided a class action in this iCloud storage-related case, but there’s another open suit in California that recently was allowed to proceed.
That case involves Apple’s requirement that iCloud storage be used for iCloud data backups. Thus, it’s focused on antitrust issues around making third-party alternatives impossible to choose.
We’ll keep you posted on any developments in that case as they happen.
What do you think of the pro-Apple ruling in this iCloud storage case? Let us know in the comments.
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