Apple facing near-£3bn UK lawsuit over cloud storage ‘monopoly’
Apple is facing a near-£3bn lawsuit over claims it breached competition law by effectively locking millions of UK consumers into its cloud storage service at “rip-off” prices.
The legal claim is being brought by Which?. The consumer group claimed that about 40 million Apple customers in the UK could be entitled to a payout averaging £70 each if the action is successful.
Which? has instructed an international law firm and said the class action involved all UK consumers who had paid for iCloud services since 1 October 2015.
Built into every Apple device, iCloud is the US tech company’s cloud storage service that lets people keep photos, files and other data securely online so they are backed up and available when needed.
Users get 5GB of storage for free, but to get more, they must pay, with a range of plans costing from 99p a month to £54.99 a month. Plan prices were increased by up to 29% last year – a rise described by some media outlets as a “shock price hike” affecting millions of people.
The Which? legal claim was filed with the competition appeal tribunal – a specialist UK judicial body that decides cases involving competition or economic regulatory issues.
