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Apple Accused of Trapping 40 Million UK Customers Into iCloud Service

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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.jpg

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.)

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple Accused of Trapping 40 Million UK Customers Into iCloud Service
 
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https://www.macrumors.com/2024/11/14/apple-uk-lawsuit-trapping-icloud-customers/
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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.)
 
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On the one hand I agree that the prices are deliberately tiered so that someone who wants >2TB has to pay the jaw-dropping prices of their highest two tiers which mostly will not get used, and Apple absolutely know this. But I don't find their approach anti-competitive. I am pretty content with how iCloud integrates well with Apple devices and I don't want it hacked about in a way that destroys the integration. Competitors have nothing even close to how slick iCloud enables seamless access to all my documents on all my devices.
 
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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.
 
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Apple makes pricey phones with smaller storage than average to push you into cloud. Their cloud of course. Should at least present options for alternatives.
Please, don't think tech-nerds, think average people, think your aunt Debbie.
I worked in a repair shop, people got into iCloud and barely understood what it was. The free 5GB plan is almost automatically given to you with subtle tricks: you MUST have an account to use your phone (or you don't get apps), that account is linked to iCloud, if you don't read or don't understand what it means to have cloud backups, you're signed in.
Then the space is full soon after, you panic, you think you need more space, from Apple of course. They keep sending you system reminders that make you feel like your phone will stop working if you don't give them a dollar. You trust them, it's system stuff, not an ad on the internet.
Whatsapp used to allow iOS backup only via iCloud, more deals to push you into their scheme.

Now, if you believe consumers should have no protections from this sort of things because they're ultimately responsible for everything they're technically choosing, you can skip thinking about this. You're cool, they'll never get you and you always make the right choices for yourself after all. You can definitely outsmart all of the multimillion corporations.

But if you have an aunt Debbie and care about her, you'll agree Apple (and of course all of its competitors who do similar things) should be stopped and forced to make products that people are happy to buy.

Edit:
Forgot to mention how hard it is to clean up your iPhones memory because access to the drive is locked and how bad transfering data you your Mac/PC works compared to any other device. These things are hard to understand befor you buy and try alternatives, most people don't even know how to find information about this.

Also, people who disagree, since I assume you like the freedom of capitalist competition, please tell me why you're fine with Apple having meetings to decide how they can avoid having to face competition with actual skills and good products instead of dirty tricks.
 
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This is complex and far from black and white.

I don't believe it warrants this lawsuit.

Sure, you are given a small amount which is just enough for a backup of a single device etc... but there is nothing to force you into using Apple Mail, or iCloud Photo Library, or Message in iCloud etc etc - its all optional and can all be turned off and you can opt to manage your own storage by deleting old emails and messages or using other service such as Gmail and WhatsApp and Google photos etc etc etc

So I would disagree that people are forced to do anything. To say you *need* iCloud storage beyond the free tier for your iPhone to function is plain wrong.

I agree that Apple is expensive but if you don't know that by now you never will.

I also agree that personally speaking id trust Apple with my data more than anyone else out there.
 
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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.
 
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What other options to i have to get my messages, photos etc all synced across devices and backed up? Well, i need iCloud for that. And Apple are obviously aware that they put cameras on their phones that now create large file sizes making their free tier of storage useless. Cloud storage is important for these devices. A huge jump in cost to have them working as advertised is not fair game. Plus, if you have family members sharing your storage, good luck in getting them all to do cloud house keeping or consider moving to a different cloud provider for storing their photos.
 
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MajorFubar said:
On the one hand I agree that the prices are deliberately tiered so that someone who wants >2TB has to pay the jaw-dropping prices of their highest two tiers which mostly will not get used, and Apple absolutely know this. But I don't find their approach anti-competitive. I am pretty content with how iCloud integrates well with Apple devices and I don't want it hacked about in a way that destroys the integration. Competitors have nothing even close to how slick iCloud enables seamless access to all my documents on all my devices.
Click to expand...
I think you fail to see the issue.

The issue is, if you want to back your iPhone up to a cloud service, iCloud is the only option. That’s by design, you can’t use anything else
 
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I'll normally take the opportunity to call Apple out on their issues, but this is a wild position. Also, a 70/person payout is proper "redress" for such a "travesty"? This is a lawyer payout. The British are locking up indigenous citizens for harmless social media posts, so I'm not shocked at all. Europe is letting itself fall into 3rd world nonsense-drivel and it's quite sad.
 
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djcerla said:
Leave Apple alone, the market must decide not regulators.

I am on the Apple ecosystem because I like the Apple ecosystem as is, not because Apple forces me in any mysterious way.
Click to expand...

The idea that markets regulate themselves is complete BS. If humans weren't complete scumbags then it might be true but they are. The markets are regulated, increasingly, in favour of big business. In unregulated markets you would not have free choice because the richest and biggest companies would take that choice away from you in every way possible.

Go look at how much money all the trillion dollar companies spend in lobbying. Look at how much they spend on legal matters. They are not about a fair game or a free market. They want your money and they want to compete as little as possible for it.

There is always a balance to be had and yes, one of the reasons I use loads of apple devices is their tight integration and "walled garden". That doesn't mean there shouldn't be options for people who want to live outside that. The key point here is options.
 
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The basic logic of this (and many other similar lawsuits) seems to be that because the iPhone is so popular, Apple should thus not be allowed to offer any paid add on services to the iPhone without also offering competitor services as well.

I get why people want that.

I also get that this slows down innovation and adds complexity and uncertainty when you need to start integrating all these other services into every part of your platform.

Perhaps the thing that bugs me the most about this is that Apple is expected to do all the work and pay for all the expenses of opening up their platform for competitors who get to enjoy it for free.
 
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JonathanX64 said:
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.
Click to expand...

And how do you suggest the average normie protects themselves against fire, theft, hard drive failures, or security breaches?
 
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