Apple accused of selling user data

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Apple is being sued by customers for unlawfully selling information about their iTunes purchases as well as personal data.  This data allegedly was sold to 3rd parties, which resulted in the plaintiffs getting "a barrage of unwanted junk mail at their home addresses and e-mail inboxes"

According to the court document, 3rd parties can buy the data for $136 per 1000 users, so little under 14 cent per user.

 

Quote

To supplement its revenues and enhance the formidability of its brand in the eyes of mobile application developers, Apple sells, rents, transmits, and/or otherwise discloses, to various third parties, information reflecting the music that its customers purchase from the iTunes Store application that comes pre-installed on their iPhones,

 

Quote

The data Apple discloses includes the full names and home addresses of its customers, together with the genres and, in some cases, the specific titles of the digitally-recorded music that its customers have purchased via the iTunes Store and then stored in their devices’ Apple Music libraries.

 

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Additionally, the lawsuit alleges the Music APIs Apple includes in its developer kit can allow third-party devs to harvest similarly detailed logs of user activity for their own use, further violating the privacy of iTunes customers.

 

Source 1 : Bloomberg

Source 2 : 9 to 5 Mac

Source 3 : The Register

 

 

My 13.6 cents: If these allegations turn out to be true, that's going to leave a long-lasting mark on their brand. 

 

Either way, what do you think the odds are of them saying that only a very small percentage of users were affected by this?

[JoeCoke]

uh oh

[Levent]

I bet they are going to say they sell metadata instead of real data. Definition of metadata is getting stretched beyond acceptable levels nowadays.

[Deus Voltage]

[mr moose]

11 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

 

Either way, what do you think the odds are of them saying that only a very small percentage of users were affected by this?

It's a fe...

[descendency]

They'll blame the issues that the select users are facing on their own actions, claiming they did something wrong.

[SenKa]

The real question is who uses iTunes over Apple Music? 

[rockking1379]

If this does turn out to be true it will no doubt damage the brand in an irreparable way. That’s been one of the “arguments” of iOS over android. Less data collected and sold. Well allegedly 

[Tech_Dreamer]

Accept-Agree-Continue with terms before using the product & Voila. here we are.

[kirashi]

3 minutes ago, SenpaiKaplan said:

The real question is who uses iTunes over Apple Music? 

 

Nah, the REAL question is "Who uses Apple Music over Spotify?"

[SenKa]

1 minute ago, kirashi said:

Nah, the REAL question is "Who uses Apple Music over Spotify?"

Apple Music actually plays a lot more songs out of the artists libraries than Spotify does. It does a lot less filtering of the hits than Spotify does in my experience. I actually went back and checked to see if Spotify had the songs I hadn't heard there that I did on Apple Music

[captain_to_fire]

9 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Nah, the REAL question is "Who uses Apple Music over Spotify?"

A lot. In the US alone, Apple Music users have surpassed Spotify. I think Apple Music pays higher royalties compared to Spotify. 

[captain_to_fire]

42 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

My 13.6 cents: If these allegations turn out to be true, that's going to leave a long-lasting mark on their brand. 

 

Either way, what do you think the odds are of them saying that only a very small percentage of users were affected by this?

Is there a a pdf of the litigation? 

[DrMacintosh]

These are some pretty bold claims with other possible explanations than jumping to the conclusion that iTunes must be selling your Full name, address and SSN to 3rd parties  

 

Alternatively, if it's in the EULA....well, you didn't read it and signed it anyway so

[Curufinwe_wins]

Imagine that. I've pointed out the various disclaimers and crap in iTunes and other places that gives Apple nearly unlimited power to share and collect all that stuff, but people kept telling me "They don't actually do that!".

 

Color me SHOCKED.

 

 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

4 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Is there a a pdf of the litigation?

Yup, near the top of the Register article, a couple of lines below the photo.

[justpoet]

If fully true, this is a bombshell.  However, it looks like they're blaming Apple for a list bought from data aggregators.  All quotes taken from the court document PDF, most easily available here:  https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/05/29/appleitunescomplaint.pdf

 

From Apple:

Quote

Personal Listening Information, identifying the names and addresses of its customers and the particular genres of music they have purchased from its iTunes Store

 

From aggregators: 

Quote

supplement that information with additional sensitive personal information about each of Apple customers, including their age, gender, purchasing habits, education, household income, and (when applicable) the number, age, and gender of the subscriber’s children

Quote

shown in the screenshot below, the Personal Listening Information of 18,188,721 “iTunes and Pandora Music Purchasers,” residing across the United States (including in Michigan and Rhode Island), is offered for sale on the website of Carney Direct Marketing (“CDM”)

 

They then continue with:

Quote

Specifically, many mobile applications developed using Apple’s iOS SDK have been programmed to provide their developers with complete and total access, via Apple’s “MediaPlayer Framework API,” to highly-detailed metadata reflecting the full content of the iTunes music libraries of users of devices on which such applications are installed (applications which, on information and belief, include but are not limited to those developed by Pandora).

But, that's not quite correct in terminology.  That aside, Apple does offer things such as your iTunes library through this, but to get any information, this will pop up the alert dialog asking if you want to allow the application to access your Music Library…and they won't get anything if you deny it.  Check the Privacy section of iOS Settings and the sub-category Media & Apple Music to see what you've allowed to have this access.  In any case, this is further evidence being presented that THIRD PARTIES are selling your data, rather than Apple directly.  This same data is what lets something like Spotify or Pandora base their recommendations on what you've already played/owned.

 

Summarizing another section of the claim, there was a bug prior to iOS 10 that could allow for access without the alert popping up…but that was both quite a while ago, and patched.

 

So, in short.  They're putting a class action suit on Apple because people click "Allow" when asked if they want to let an app access everything, and then it actually accesses everything.

[laminutederire]

7 minutes ago, justpoet said:

If fully true, this is a bombshell.  However, it looks like they're blaming Apple for a list bought from data aggregators.  All quotes taken from the court document PDF, most easily available here:  https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/05/29/appleitunescomplaint.pdf

 

From Apple:

 

From aggregators: 

 

They then continue with:

But, that's not quite correct in terminology.  That aside, Apple does offer things such as your iTunes library through this, but to get any information, this will pop up the alert dialog asking if you want to allow the application to access your Music Library…and they won't get anything if you deny it.  Check the Privacy section of iOS Settings and the sub-category Media & Apple Music to see what you've allowed to have this access.  In any case, this is further evidence being presented that THIRD PARTIES are selling your data, rather than Apple directly.  This same data is what lets something like Spotify or Pandora base their recommendations on what you've already played/owned.

 

Summarizing another section of the claim, there was a bug prior to iOS 10 that could allow for access without the alert popping up…but that was both quite a while ago, and patched.

 

So, in short.  They're putting a class action suit on Apple because people click "Allow" when asked if they want to let an app access everything, and then it actually accesses everything.

Allowing an app to access anything is not allowing it to share to everyone either. It's like saying you have sex with someone, so since you let that person have sex with you they're allowed to film it and share it on pornsites for a profit...

Just... no.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

10 minutes ago, justpoet said:

However, it looks like they're blaming Apple for a list bought from data aggregators.

That was my initial impression too.  But then again any decent lawyer will advise against starting a court case if there is no chance of winning it.  So there must be some evidence that data is indeed sold by Apple.  Even if that data is just part of what is causing them to get spam, it's still an issue.

[Guest]

Where’s the proof? 

[rockking1379]

2 minutes ago, floofer said:

Where’s the proof? 

Proof? This is America! All we need is to claim you did it. And that means you did it. 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, floofer said:

Where’s the proof? 

The list they present is direct from a data seller, pertains almost solely to apple products and services.  There are only three ways I can think for this to be the case:

 

1. the evidence is all manufactured

2. the evidence is true, but apple did not specifically sell it themselves and only made the data available through app developers (either by allowing it or failing to prevent it physically).

3. Apple sold the data themselves.

 

Given one of apples biggest draw cards is that your data does not get sold, this is an issue for them regardless of 2 or 3.  And only a very slim chance number 1 is true.

 

 

17 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Imagine that. I've pointed out the various disclaimers and crap in iTunes and other places that gives Apple nearly unlimited power to share and collect all that stuff, but people kept telling me "They don't actually do that!".

 

Color me SHOCKED.

 

 

I know, I've also tried explaining that all companies are the same and no one should explicitly trust one over any other.  But alas some people just can't help themselves.

 

 

[justpoet]

21 minutes ago, laminutederire said:

Allowing an app to access anything is not allowing it to share to everyone either. It's like saying you have sex with someone, so since you let that person have sex with you they're allowed to film it and share it on pornsites for a profit...

Just... no.

This is…very obviously different.  Data is data.  Video is video.  Sex is sex.  Sex is not a video.

Apple has put in its terms and conditions for developers a LOT of restrictions on being able to sell, recombine, and re-use data that they get.  They've actively been going after developers and apps on the app store to either have them fixed or removed as well (this has recently been in the news).

 

To your point, just because somebody is allowed to access something doesn't mean they're allowed to do anything they want with it.  To use your very flawed analogy, it would be something like saying "sure, you can film this and use it in the future, but you can't sell it to other people"…but then somebody else who saw it made a copy and then sold it.

 

In short, once you allow a third party to access all your data, you can't be surprised that they then use/share/sell it based on THEIR (non)privacy policy, rather than Apple's, even if Apple has in the contract that the developer isn't allowed to do so.

[Deus Voltage]

6 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I know, I've also tried explaining that all companies are the same and no one should explicitly trust one over any other.  But alas some people just can't help themselves.

I knows it's not exactly necessary, but playing startup company lately made me even more convinced of the peter principle. Sure, some companies can get really good at managing overhead/expenditures, and provided there is good management hierarchies, they can survive for a pretty long time.

 

However, you're bound to find a bunch incompetent people somewhere up the chain who cumulatively start to bring the effectiveness of the company down. And the marketing team eventually starts to take over until the product is diluted into something foreign from the customer's actual desires, but financially fetishized by the higher ups.

 

Apple is just one of the few companies that are structurally highly self aware, but something is bound to catch them by the rear end eventually.

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, Deus Voltage said:

I knows it's not exactly necessary, but playing startup company lately made me even more convinced of the peter principle. Sure, some companies can get really good at managing overhead/expenditures, and provided there is good management hierarchies, they can survive for a pretty long time.

 

However, you're bound to find a bunch incompetent people somewhere up the chain who cumulatively start to bring the effectiveness of the company down. And the marketing team eventually starts to take over until the product is diluted into something foreign from the customer's actual desires, but financially fetishized by the higher ups.

 

Apple is just one of the few companies that are structurally highly self aware, but something is bound to catch them by the rear end eventually.

Yep, and the issue for apple is not the technicalities of this case at all (because everyday users don't care about technicalities), but the fact their privacy pages is heavily worded to insinuate this won't happen.

 

https://www.apple.com/au/privacy/