Apple hit with £3 billion claim over iCloud pricing and packaging practices
UK consumer group Which? has filed a £3 billion action against Apple over alleged competition law breaches related to its iCloud service.
The claim alleges that the iPhone maker locked customers into iCloud and charged them handsomely for the privilege. Which? claims that around 40 million Apple customers in the UK who have obtained iCloud services in the last nine years could be affected, charging that Apple abused its market dominance "to gain an unfair advantage."
According to Which? "A key tactic to achieve this has been encouraging users to sign up to iCloud for storage of photos, videos and other data while simultaneously making it difficult to use alternative providers, including because Apple does not allow customers to store or back up all of their phone's data with a third-party provider.
Anyone who has had to deal with an iPhone sending multiple reminders about the device being unable to create a backup due to insufficient iCloud capacity – and wearily signed up to iCloud to stop the warnings – will be very familiar with these tactics.
