Judge Lucy Koh dismisses location tracking lawsuit against Apple
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh earlier this week dismissed a lawsuit against Apple which alleged that the the company had illegally tracked and transmitted user location data. The suit was initially filed in 2011 by a group of plaintiffs who argued that Apple was in violation of its own privacy policy and that they, as a result, over-paid for their iPhones.
Specifically, the plaintiffs argued that in collecting and transmitting location data without user consent, Apple diminished the overall value of their devices by degrading its "battery, bandwidth, and storage resources."
In dismissing the lawsuit, Koh explained that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that they, in fact, suffered any tangible harm as a result of Apple's actions.
The ruling reads in part:
Plaintiffs must be able to provide some evidence that they saw one or more of Apple's alleged misrepresentations, that they actually relied on those misrepresentations, and that they were harmed thereby.
While the iDevice Plaintiffs identify numerous purported misrepresentations and argue that they relied on them in purchasing their iPhones, the evidentiary record is devoid of "specific facts" to support Plaintiffs' assertions. Critically, none of the Plaintiffs presents evidence that he or she even saw, let alone read and relied upon, the alleged misrepresentations contained in the Apple Privacy Policies, SLAs, or App Store Terms and Conditions, either prior to purchasing his or her iPhone, or at any time thereafter.
As a final point, Reuters relays that this case is just one part of a much broader case that "consolidates 19 related lawsuits."
