EU Justice Commissioner: AppleCare violates member states' laws
EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding blasted Apple in a speech in Brussels today and urged EU member states to ensure that Apple complies with consumer protection laws, which require consumer electronics devices to come with a mandatory two-year warranty.
"This case and the responses I received since I sent my letter have highlighted rather clearly just why the Commission cannot sit on the side-lines on enforcement issues," Reding said. "The approaches to enforcement in these types of cases turn out to be very diversified and inconsistent at a national level. In at least 21 EU Member States Apple is not informing consumers correctly about the legal warranty rights they have. This is simply not good enough."
The EU has some of the strongest consumer protection laws on the planet. All products are required to carry a two-year warranty. Apple is under fire for allegedly failing to tell consumers about the guaranteed two-year coverage while selling its own three-year AppleCare warranty -- two years of which they already get with their purchase.
As Dow Jones Newswires reports, Apple pulled AppleCare sales from Italy last November and currently the computer maker is being sued by consumer groups in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Portugal over its warranty proceedings.
