Just before Christmas Apple, Inc, Backflip, Dictionary.Com, Pandora, Inc, and The Weather Channel were the named defendants in a class action lawsuit filed by Jonathan Lalo, through the KamberLaw, LLC firm. The complaint points to the alleged responsibility of the device maker and gatekeeper of the App Store for allowing applications for the iPhone and iPad to transmit, without consent, users’ personal information to advertising networks, and also names some of the prominent applications as the main perpetrators.
The central allegation in this class action is the collection and sale by the accused applications of user-identifying information such as their location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views. Ultimately, these are claims of computer fraud and invasion of privacy. For example, under the 1984 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,the unauthorized access of a computer to obtain protected financial or credit information is a criminal act. Other federal laws may come into play as the case develops, such as the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the 2002 Cyber Security Enhancement Act, as well as civil penalties under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Mainstream media attention to this phenomenon hit a high note earlier this month when Scott Thurm and Yukari Iwatani Kane published their report “Your Apps Are Watching You” on the Wall Street Journal. Joel Rosenblatt, writing for Bloomberg|BusinessWeek, has also reported on the lawsuit.
Case Info: 5:10-cv-05878-PSG Lalo v. Apple, Inc et al (Filed 12/23/2010) U.S. District Court – Northern District of California.