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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Reuters reports that Apple's Korean unit has paid out the equivalent of $946 after losing a lawsuit over the company's collection of iPhone location data. The judgment was issued in May, and Apple is said to have made the payment last month.
Apple Inc's Korean unit has paid compensation to a user of its popular iPhone after collecting location data without consent, lawyers and court officials said, the first payout by the U.S. company over these complaints.

In May, Apple Korea was ordered by the court to pay 1 million won ($946) in compensation to Kim Hyung-suk, a lawyer, two officials at Changwon District Court told Reuters on Thursday.
Emboldened by the successful lawsuit, Kim's law firm is now preparing a class action lawsuit over the location issue, and a website set up at sueapple.co.kr to allow interested users to sign on to the lawsuit has been overwhelmed by traffic.

sueapple_co_kr.jpg



Several lawsuits have already been filed in the United States over the issue, which was cast into the public light by independent researchers back in April. Apple responded to the controversy one week later, clarifying that the observed location data was actually nearby cell tower and access point data being downloaded to users' iPhones to assist with geolocation rather than the devices' actual locations as defined by GPS. Apple did, however, acknowledge several bugs in the way the location data was being handled, and addressed those issues with iOS 4.3.3 in early May.

Article Link: Apple Pays $946 in Korean Lawsuit Over Location Data Collection, New Class Action Suit Coming
 

iStudentUK

macrumors 65816
Mar 8, 2009
1,439
4
London
Fair enough, if Apple broke Korean law then they should face the consequences. Simple.

Don't know how you quantify the amounts. 1 million won seems a bit arbitrary, unless it is a fine laid down by statute.
 

Eriamjh1138@DAN

macrumors 6502a
Sep 16, 2007
849
826
BFE, MI
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Ok. They were tracked. But what harm was caused to justify a payout?
 

Dr McKay

macrumors 68040
Aug 11, 2010
3,430
57
Kirkland
$946! Hahahaaha!

They should have made Steve Jobs sit in the court personally, so after the Judge passed the decision, he could sit up, dig out his wallet and say "I think I've got that much in here".
 

Eddyisgreat

macrumors 601
Oct 24, 2007
4,851
2
I thought the purpose of collecting the data was for operating purposes (i.e. it has a legitimate purpose). Was this found not to be the case?

No bother. SJ will confiscate all iPhones from Korea by months end :D
 

Consultant

macrumors G5
Jun 27, 2007
13,314
34
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Ok. They were tracked. But what harm was caused to justify a payout?

They were NOT tracked. It was a cache on your own device.
 

mrlhxc

macrumors member
Aug 25, 2010
31
0
uhhhh

The Data Collection lawsuit has cry babies written all over it. If your afraid apple is secretly watching your every step (which they are not), throw your iPhone away.
 

Popeye206

macrumors 68040
Sep 6, 2007
3,148
836
NE PA USA
The Data Collection lawsuit has cry babies written all over it. If your afraid apple is secretly watching your every step (which they are not), throw your iPhone away.

Ahhh... throw all cell phones away! You're tracked just by owning one.

This is so silly and now the vultures are just going to try and cash in. And I thought us Americans were bad about suing. :rolleyes:
 

AQUADock

macrumors 65816
Mar 20, 2011
1,049
37
When i fist saw the title i thought it was like $946 thousand or something but its just $946 lol
 

ps45

macrumors regular
Feb 19, 2010
192
13
The Data Collection lawsuit has cry babies written all over it. If your afraid apple is secretly watching your every step (which they are not), throw your iPhone away.

For just short of a thousand bucks a go, there might be a lot of iPhone users out there prepared to play cry baby.
 

iPhysicist

macrumors 65816
Nov 9, 2009
1,343
1,004
Dresden
1 Million Won to EVERY iOS user in Korea will add up to a hefty hole in SJ pocket. Personally I find this more ridiculous than the "broken Glass" lawsuit. But I am no lawyer, I am sane.
 

addicted44

macrumors 6502a
Jun 6, 2005
533
168
I am not sure I understand. Apple did NOT collect the data on their servers, right? It was only saved in an unencrypted file locally on your own computer?

If Apple has to pay $946 to every iPhone 4 user they will go bankrupt. I would imagine this was a huge screwup by their Korean unit, and Apple HQ will be stepping in aggressively to fix this.
 

shartypants

macrumors 6502a
Jul 27, 2010
922
60
Those lawyers are scum, give me a break, there was no real privacy issue, and Apple has addressed the issue anyway.
 

LastName

macrumors member
Jan 8, 2010
69
57
Musk City Prime, Mars
$946! Hahahaaha!

They should have made Steve Jobs sit in the court personally, so after the Judge passed the decision, he could sit up, dig out his wallet and say "I think I've got that much in here".

That would be a cruel thing to do - you know Steve only gets $1/year in salary. He'd have to work almost a millennium to pay that off.
 
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