Apple Faces UK 'iCloud Monopoly' Compensation Claim Worth $3.8 Billion (techcrunch.com) 52
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: U.K. consumer rights group 'Which?' is filing a legal claim against Apple under competition law on behalf of some 40 million users of iCloud, its cloud storage service. The collective proceeding lawsuit, which is seeking 3 billion pounds in compensation damages (around $3.8 billion at current exchange rates), alleges that Apple has broken competition rules by giving its own cloud storage service preferential treatment and effectively locking people into paying for iCloud at "rip-off" prices. "iOS has a monopoly and is in control of Apple's operating systems and it is incumbent on Apple not to use that dominance to gain an unfair advantage in related markets, like the cloud storage market. But that is exactly what has happened," Which wrote in a press release announcing filing the claim with the U.K.'s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).
The lawsuit accuses Apple of encouraging users of its devices to sign up to iCloud for photo storage and other data storage needs, while simultaneously making it difficult for consumers to use alternative storage providers -- including by not allowing them to store or back-up all of their phone's data with a third-party provider. "iOS users then have to pay for the service once photos, notes, messages and other data go over the free 5GB limit," Which noted. The suit also accuses Apple of overcharging U.K. consumers for iCloud subscriptions owing to the lack of competition. "Apple raised the price of iCloud for UK consumers by between 20% and 29% across its storage tiers in 2023," it wrote, saying it's seeking damages for all affected Apple customers -- and estimating that individual consumers could be owed an average of 70 pounds (around $90), depending on how long they've been paying Apple for iCloud services. "Anyone who has 'obtained' iCloud services, including non-paying users, over the nine-year timeframe since the Consumer Rights Act came into force on October 1st, 2015," will be included in the claim. U.K.-based consumers will have to opt-out if they do not want to be included. "Consumers who live outside the U.K. and believe they are eligible to be included must actively opt-in to join the action," adds TechCrunch.
The lawsuit accuses Apple of encouraging users of its devices to sign up to iCloud for photo storage and other data storage needs, while simultaneously making it difficult for consumers to use alternative storage providers -- including by not allowing them to store or back-up all of their phone's data with a third-party provider. "iOS users then have to pay for the service once photos, notes, messages and other data go over the free 5GB limit," Which noted. The suit also accuses Apple of overcharging U.K. consumers for iCloud subscriptions owing to the lack of competition. "Apple raised the price of iCloud for UK consumers by between 20% and 29% across its storage tiers in 2023," it wrote, saying it's seeking damages for all affected Apple customers -- and estimating that individual consumers could be owed an average of 70 pounds (around $90), depending on how long they've been paying Apple for iCloud services. "Anyone who has 'obtained' iCloud services, including non-paying users, over the nine-year timeframe since the Consumer Rights Act came into force on October 1st, 2015," will be included in the claim. U.K.-based consumers will have to opt-out if they do not want to be included. "Consumers who live outside the U.K. and believe they are eligible to be included must actively opt-in to join the action," adds TechCrunch.
I run my own cloud (Score:1)
Re:I run my own cloud (Score:5, Interesting)
There are two major roadblocks to using an alternative cloud to back up your iPhone.
1. iCloud has access to secret APIs that let it save data that normal apps cannot access, like settings for other apps and the phone itself. It's impossible for other apps to provide a full phone backup that can restore your device.
2. iCloud is excluded from the normal limits on app background activity, so it can easily upload large amounts of data such as when you take a load of photos or a long video. Other apps are aggressively killed if they try to upload in the background, so to back that data up to the cloud you need to keep that app open and on-screen for however long it takes.
The EU will probably require Apple to open both of those things up. Android apps can already do (2), but even there some limits on (1) exist.
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There are two major roadblocks to using an alternative cloud to back up your iPhone.
1. iCloud has access to secret APIs that let it save data that normal apps cannot access, like settings for other apps and the phone itself. It's impossible for other apps to provide a full phone backup that can restore your device.
2. iCloud is excluded from the normal limits on app background activity, so it can easily upload large amounts of data such as when you take a load of photos or a long video. Other apps are aggressively killed if they try to upload in the background, so to back that data up to the cloud you need to keep that app open and on-screen for however long it takes.
The EU will probably require Apple to open both of those things up. Android apps can already do (2), but even there some limits on (1) exist.
Also, some fairly significant storage loads (on Apple), such as ten-day storage for a certain number of cameras using HomeKit Secure Video, do not have that storage counted against their iCloud Plan Limit.
Same thing with gigantic Email Attachments: Stored for Retrieval for 30 days without charge, and without counting against a User's iCloud Limit.
BTW, those additional "freebie storage" benefits extend even to the Free 5 GB iCloud Tier.
There are likely other Storage Freebies that I don't use; but those are t
editorial rigor (Score:1)
is it Million or Billions? Make up your minds.
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is it Million or Billions? Make up your minds.
Billions. The headline is wrong. The body of TFS is correct.
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I hope this gets traction (Score:3)
I would much rather use Nextcloud for photos and music backup, but currently that is impractical with Apple's restrictions. The iCloud storage prices are abusive.
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$3 per month for 200GB of storage or $10 for 2TB is "abusive?" That's some first world problems you've got there. I've got the 200GB option and it's enough for my phone and ipad, and both kids ipads.
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That's a new one, I think I just got a glimpse of a weird future.
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A 2TB HDD is what, $59.00 now [amazon.com]? Yes, that's a usurious scam. In a muslim country you could be put to death for this.
FFS, I hate defending any of Apple's practices, but you can't compare the cost of a HDD directly to the cost of the same amount of cloud storage. It's nowhere near the same thing.
Compare it to similar offerings:
* Apple iCloud: 2TB $10.99/mo (6TB for $32.99/mo)
* Google One: 2TB $9.99/mo
* Dropbox: 2TB $11.99/mo ($9.99/mo billed annually)
* Microsoft 365 Personal: 1TB $5.83/mo billed annually (NOTE: for 2tb, I'm unsure of price, but one reference noted it would work out to $16.99/mo)
* Box.com: -no comparable pl
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Roll-your-own-cloud (from my personal experience)
-old Dell PC with one free PCIe slot, Ivy Bridge CPU, 16GB RAM: about $80
-PCIe SAS card: about $25
-32TB worth of SAS enterprise drives (8x4TB) from decommissioned data centers, with 30000 to 50000h on them (i.e. with about half their useful life still left): about $200
-Linux and OpenZFS: free
-an hour or two of install and config time.
After the initial cost: $0/month for 32TB space. Can be expanded at will as needed.
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Compare it to similar offerings:
Yeoman's Work there! Great List!!!
That List should be Defense Exhibit 2. . .
This is Ridiclous (Score:1)
You can backup your iOS device to any PC or Mac, which can then utilize Backblaze, Google Drive or whatever cloud thingy you want to use.
https://support.apple.com/en-u... [apple.com]
Sounds like the people bringing this suit are wanna be software architects with little imagination.
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According to apple, an iPad is a computer, yet you can't use a iPad to backup and restore an iPhone.
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What an impossibly muddy statement. Not only would I have a hard time finding a quote where Apple said, "the iPad is a computer", there is no real definition of what a computer is or isn't. But you've implied that to be a computer means it can back up an iOS device. Which is silly.
I'd be happy to hear a clarification, though. I suspect there's a point in here I'm not getting.
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According to apple, an iPad is a computer, yet you can't use a iPad to backup and restore an iPhone.
Kind of impractical, idiot; since they generally have similar Storage sizes.
STFU, Hater.
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Are you seriously suggesting that having to manually connect your iPhone and run a backup, and then backup the backup, is not going to drive people to use iCloud where it all happens automatically, continually, on the device itself?
And that assumes you even have a computer, of course. And that it runs MacOS or Windows.
It will be interesting to see if Apple tries the "you can do it, it's just a really shitty experience that you will probably forget to do until it's too late" defence.
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> You can backup your iOS device to any PC or Mac, which can then utilize Backblaze, Google Drive or whatever cloud thingy you want to use.
Why the hell should you have to do that? Why can't you just use Backblaze, Google Drive or whatever cloud thingy directly off the phone? Why does it *have* to be icloud?
Apple are a defacto monopoly*, and as such, have to provide choice. Doing as they do now is market abuse*.
* As defined in Europe. In the US, the 'bar' for such things is much higher as consumer protect
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You can backup your iOS device to any PC or Mac, which can then utilize Backblaze, Google Drive or whatever cloud thingy you want to use.
https://support.apple.com/en-u... [apple.com]
Sounds like the people bringing this suit are wanna be software architects with little imagination.
But Dollar Signs (Pound Signs?) Dancing in their eyes!
Millions of Billions? (Score:2)
Re:What is wrong with people? (Score:4, Interesting)
So the UK is a country
The UK makes laws
People are upholding those laws
Just don't live in the UK if you don't like the laws there. Apple can choose for themselves if they don't want to do business there.
Then take advantage of the FREE MARKET system that's supposed to exist. Create a BETTER product that people actually want to use.
All western countries have laws against illegal monopolistic practices. If you don't like that you should make a BETTER country where you want to live.
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Oh you didn't strike me as Irish. You know Apple Europe is based in Ireland right? So they can make sure that no taxes are ever sent to the US?
How's the weather in Ireland these days?
Re:What is wrong with people? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple creates a phone that people like. Ok, so far so good. Innovation and polish rewarded, free market in action, hooray.
Apple sets up a cloud storage offering that is deeply undistinguished and not particularly well priced. Ok, nobody requires you to make actually-good products, market will sort it out, whatever.
Apple gives their own, and only their own, there is no standard a 3rd party can meet and no configuration a device owner can do to change this, cloud service uniquely privileged access on their phones in order to make it the only option for iOS cloud backups. Now we have a problem: Apple gets to use their actually well liked product to shield their frankly mediocre one from competitive pressures. Any you are still banging on about how this is an exercise of the glorious free market?
It's honestly a couple of notches more audacious than the MS bundling of teams to get rid of slack and zoom despite teams' abject mediocrity(which also attracted regulatory scrutiny): sure they made it 'free' with Office licensing to bury the competition; but they didn't tweak Windows to break Zoom's webcam access so that Teams could be the better video conferencing product; while Apple has essentially made a number of iOS design choices aimed at making iCloud the only viable cloud storage option.
Are you just unaware of how tying works; or are you working with a definition of 'product' that expands to include every last 'ecosystem' thing a vendor chooses to argue is an integral part of a 'product' for market purposes?
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Suppose Apple didn't make iCloud at all. Provided no mechanism for backing up or off-phone storage on the cloud, at all. Any such services will need to be provided by someone other than Apple.
How does that help customers?
Apple would have been forced to open up their platform enough for third-party backups to be possible. And then there would be multiple competing companies creating backup services that actually back everything up reliably. That would help customers a great deal.
This is part of why Microsoft got in trouble with antitrust regulators. Their own apps used a bunch of private APIs that were not available to third parties, which gave them a competitive advantage. When you're a large market player, you really c
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Then take advantage of the FREE MARKET system that's supposed to exist.
Free markets are a myth, in that a perfect one has never existed. The closest you get is when you have a regulated market where people are not allowed to take advantage of their market position to dissuade competition, because only competition lowers prices.
You are complaining that the EU is trying to create the thing you are asking for.
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So, Apple creates a product.
People complain that product is inferior to other offerings.
Apple encourages users of their ecosystem to use this product.
A lot of people start using this product.
People now complain that Apple has an unfair advantage in the market.
Then take advantage of the FREE MARKET system that's supposed to exist. Create a BETTER product that people actually want to use. All of these anti-monopoly law suits just create more and more barriers to a true fee market system. If a product is so good that nobody wants to use anything else, then, too bad.
Precisely!
Google does the same (Score:2)
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Why does it nag you and not me? Could it be you've done something weird with your particular phone? Personally I use a completely different cloud tool not tied to Google on my phone. I can do that, easily, and the software works well and keeps everything I need backed up.
You know, all the things that you can't do on an iPhone.
Pricing (Score:1)
https://support.apple.com/en-u... [apple.com]
I pay 99 cents a month for 50GB of iCloud. Backblaze charges $99/year for unlimited storage. ($8.25/month). For $10/month Apple will give me 2TB which is effectively unlimited for pretty much everyone at a similar price and it's integrated.
I understand the complaint about special Apple only APIs and such but the pricing doesn't seem outrageous for most people who don't need unlimited storage. According to the Apple price chart, UK pays about the same as the US differing
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Thousands of pictures and hundreds of videos, the vast majority of which no eyes will ever see again. I don't disagree with anything you said here. I think you are completely correct. But this digital packrat behaviour and the narcissistic overvaluing of the entertainment value of our lives is bizarre to me. The great thing about digital media is that when it dies, it dies for real, and we don't leave thousands of physical artifacts of our cute dog or our unremarkable child behind. No AI assist or HD captur
iCloud, OneDrive (Score:2)
Gee... this is actually reasonable. (Score:2)
I find myself in the interesting position of agreeing with the suit completely.
- Clear statement of monopolistic behaviour
- Specific recurring revenue stream related it
- Damages that actually resemble the revenue at 75 pounds per head
- Brought by an appropriate group and not just a bunch of... damn. No easy portmanteau for vultures and lawyers.
I have the 200Gb plan, even though I don't have to. I could back up my multiple devices at home. But it's seamless and easy, and it's cheap. I don't feel harmed. But
This is very simple (Score:2)
It's not different than owning an automobile. You can buy a Dodge, and you can have whatever mechanic you want (or yourself) put whatever aftermarket parts on it that your heart desires. But if they're not Mopar parts installed by an approved technician, Dodge doesn't have to warranty any of it. And if your aftermarket parts don't work or don't work as well as their Mopar alternatives (if they even exist,) that's not Dodge's problem either.
If you don't want the Apple Ecosystem, either don't buy Apple pro