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German Court Strikes Down Sections of Apple's Privacy Policy

somethingelsefl said:
Apple should have seen this coming. If there is one thing Germany (and the E.U.) are known for...it's privacy. :sarcasm:
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And there the users and sceptic professionals come into play.
We do not only have the "official" consumer protection but also several private organized people who keep an open eye and do take care.

such as

http://www.ccc.de/en/

Tearing apart, and revealing every data security weakness, especially of information systems released by the government "fingerprint in passports" "Electronic ID-Card" "DE-Mail" and such funny things that only "big brother" could have dreamed of...
 
Last edited:
"...allow Apple to share personal information with other companies or use it for advertising..."

Strange, I keep reading this comment from users on these forums, only its about another company...
 
Amazing Iceman said:
Unprotected? Anything Unprotected is considered public.

It's comparable to a house with no doors and a sign that reads "Welcome".

Or like leaving your wallet on a park bench on purpose.

If you want privacy, start by protecting your WiFi; it's the obvious thing to do!
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Indeed it is.

But there still are people like "Susi Sorglos" (Susi Carefree) who also have to be protected.
 
Taken that it is my country's court, it really is ironic. While T-Mobile (owns all the internet and main mobile infrastructure) recently announced to throttle all landline internet data except their "premium" services and thus attacking net neutrality in a clever way, plus having had numerous data scandals over the years, courts now seem to act in favor of customers. Don't get me wrong, I care about privacy (I just try not to provide data which I don't have to for using mandatory services) and I am thankful that some entity acts, but there are worse companies national and international-wise. Still, it wouldn't hurt if Apple could just give the customer a little bit more insight. Jobs also stressed that it was important to Apple, yet things like user-specific iAds are on by default and have to be turned off by activating a deactivating description (ugly move).
 
dannyp1996 said:
Hopefully the EU will pick up on this and move forward with bringing this kind of ruling into force union wide.

On another note, I do enjoy how the EU gets US companies to abide by its rules. For example I got an 18 month old Mac repaired the other day that wasn't under Applecare. Just reminded them about the sale of consumer goods directive by the European Union and they stopped trying to charge me.
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But then again, people from the UK complain about the high Apple prices.
 
Plutonius said:
But then again, people from the UK complain about the high Apple prices.
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Old joke isn't it?

Apple.de >Imac 27 Inch basic build > 1.879,00 €
Apple.us > same > $1,799.00

EUR/USD
1.00 / 1,30

Should'nt an Imac in germany cost less than 2,458.48 $?
(even with shipping fees included?)

the same for great britain
 
jonAppleSeed said:
Apple should just buy Germany
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Unfortunately for you, even Apple does not have that kind of money. 😛

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Mike8833 said:
bushido said:
i was actually being sarcastic because most people rather text for 10 hours straight then sorting everything out within 5 mins over the phone nowadays (im no exception)

Ich schreibe auch lieber als ständig mit aussetzern nachzufragen was denn die gegenseite gesagt hat 😀
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Der war gut! 😀
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This reads as Apple being plain lazy or arrogant?, refusing to abide by the laws of a given land is pretty disgusting and despicable to be honest. Yeah Europe we only have one policy and it's ours! We won't follow your laws.... erm, no, doesn't work like that in the world.

Corporations don't fully run everything.. yet.. EU laws are great sometimes and to think those on here seem to proclaim Google is worst, yet it has no trouble following German privacy law's.. 🙄

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Plutonius said:
But then again, people from the UK complain about the high Apple prices.
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Ah good, I was wondering when the stereotyping insults would spread to include other country's in Europe... 🙄
 
antonis said:
Yes and no. I do agree that EU has some regulations that feels nice to be reminded to some US companies, indeed, but sometimes they just go too far, getting ridiculous. Like the Mac Pro fans disband.
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Completely agree. I like that we get real consumer protection, but hate that Brussels essentially rules our country, and can implement stupid laws and rulings (the Mac Pro fanblade being an ideal example). A country cant 'veto' a EU ruling either, so its not like its a 'recommendation' that countries follow - its a law.

Personally, I cant wait for a vote on staying part of the EU. The UK had generally very good consumer protection before the EU rulings came into effect, so that would be a negligible effect on us.
 
apolloa said:
This reads as Apple being plain lazy or arrogant?, refusing to abide by the laws of a given land is pretty disgusting and despicable to be honest. Yeah Europe we only have one policy and it's ours! We won't follow your laws.... erm, no, doesn't work like that in the world.

Corporations don't fully run everything.. yet.. EU laws are great sometimes and to think those on here seem to proclaim Google is worst, yet it has no trouble following German privacy law's.. 🙄

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Ah good, I was wondering when the stereotyping insults would spread to include other country's in Europe... 🙄
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I also thought about Google in Germany. I don't particularly know about America but here, their reputation is worse than Facebook's, yet they do seem to never get in conflict with the law. I guess its lawyers really do their jobs well...
 
dannyp1996 said:
Hopefully the EU will pick up on this and move forward with bringing this kind of ruling into force union wide.

On another note, I do enjoy how the EU gets US companies to abide by its rules. For example I got an 18 month old Mac repaired the other day that wasn't under Applecare. Just reminded them about the sale of consumer goods directive by the European Union and they stopped trying to charge me.
Click to expand...

Likely only to shut you up. Chances are that whatever was going on didn't fit with the laws which generally only cover defects at time of purchase and make you prove it this far out. But it's not worth it in many cases for them to bother so if you scream they give in cause the cost of going to court and proving they didn't have to legally cover it is more than the cost of the repair
 
Amazing Iceman said:
Unprotected? Anything Unprotected is considered public.
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Maybe by you, but not in Germany.

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Mike8833 said:
Old joke isn't it?

Apple.de >Imac 27 Inch basic build > 1.879,00 €
Apple.us > same > $1,799.00

EUR/USD
1.00 / 1,30

Should'nt an Imac in germany cost less than 2,458.48 $?
(even with shipping fees included?)

the same for great britain
Click to expand...

Not really. You didn't add 20% VAT. You didn't add in the cost of better consumer protection laws. And seriously, you can't buy things in Germany with US dollars.
 
zin said:
Instead of blindly defending Apple, the article states that this relates to how customer data, and which data, are used and by whom. The German court states that Apple cannot request global consent and must instead specifically inform customers of this information.

Seems pretty fair, in my opinion.
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My question is this? Hasn't Apple been doing this for a while, on their own. Maybe not explicitly spelling out the purpose in some giant info box of 'we are asking for consent to use your location within the camera app to place a geographic data tag into your photos for use by programs such as iPhoto which can sort photos by location. Be advised that if you upload these photos to some websites, including Facebook, that information will also be available to their systems' right on the screen. But certainly the asking to use it. And it's by app and data type.

So what exactly is their issue with the policies?
 
apolloa said:
This reads as Apple being plain lazy or arrogant?, refusing to abide by the laws of a given land is pretty disgusting and despicable to be honest.
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But Apple applies with German laws. Automatically. If there are things in a contract contrary to the laws, they might as well not be there. What Apple was told wasn't "it is against the law to have terms of service like you do", it was "your terms of service don't count, and a consumer agreeing with them doesn't give you any rights".
 
gnasher729 said:
Maybe by you, but not in Germany.

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Not really. You didn't add 20% VAT. You didn't add in the cost of better consumer protection laws. And seriously, you can't buy things in Germany with US dollars.
Click to expand...

Immer noch weniger als 2500$
Verbraucherschutz kostet nicht wirklich ~400 Dollar.
Und ja man kann mit Dollar einkaufen. Z.b. Bei BK und auf Amerikanischem Hoheitsgebiet in D.
 
charlituna said:
My question is this? Hasn't Apple been doing this for a while, on their own. Maybe not explicitly spelling out the purpose in some giant info box of 'we are asking for consent to use your location within the camera app to place a geographic data tag into your photos for use by programs such as iPhoto which can sort photos by location. Be advised that if you upload these photos to some websites, including Facebook, that information will also be available to their systems' right on the screen. But certainly the asking to use it. And it's by app and data type.

So what exactly is their issue with the policies?
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Not doing what I bolded from your quote. Seems pretty clear.
 
So does this mean that Germans will not receive location services?

Location services for Wifi devices requires people to be willing to share anonymous location data from their cellular devices with wifi turned on. If germans are unwilling to share that data then they should not be allowed to use that data collected from others either.

You cannot just be a taker.
 
AppleMark said:
Great that somebody is keeping an eye on what is in the privacy policy, because we are not......

Sad but true...
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Very well said. Not that it's an easy fit to keep an eye on such things, which is the things where they finally get you....
 
Mike8833 said:
In Germany you'll have to if you're in a contract with the "Telekom" (T-Mobile).
Bandwith limitation while mobile makes it impossible and also they go back in time and kill the good old flatrate contracts for home use, so using skype or sth. similar at home via WLAN won't be fun by being limited to 348/kbps (from DSL 50.000)

Politicians and the Bundesnetzagentur argue against it and will prove if net neutrality is kept or not. (its rather not, because their own services are not limited)
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As far as I know the limits that Telekom want to impose are fairly generous. In the UK we've had "Fair Usage Policies" for years, and bandwidth on most networks seems to be quite heavily controlled (especially during peak hours).

I think Telekom is just catching up with what's been the unfortunate case in many other European counties for a while.
 
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