“Apple Inc., already facing a U.S. privacy lawsuit over its information-sharing practices, was told by a German court to change its rules for handling customer data,” Karin Matussek reports for Bloomberg News.
“A Berlin court struck down eight of 15 provisions in Apple’s general data-use terms because they deviate too much from German laws, a consumer group [Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (VZBV)] said in a statement on its website today,” Matussek reports. “The court said Apple can’t ask for ‘global consent’ to use customer data or use information on the locations of customers.”
Matussek reports, “The ruling, which only applies to Germany, can be appealed… Apple had already signed a binding declaration that it wouldn’t use seven of the 15 clauses VZBV had objected to before the German suit was filed, the consumer group said. The remaining eight provisions were invalidated by today’s ruling, VZBV said.”
Read more in the full article here.
Apple certainly need to absolutely require warrant for each case of government seeking information on its customers, as well as do all the necessary measures and disclosures that required:
https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013
I read that as Apple couldn’t use location data, which is stupid because without location data maps don’t work so well.
or what time zone you’re in or FindMyiPhone.
Wasn’t the whole European Union thing supposed to squash this kind of country by country nit picking?
The problem is that the European Union is like the United States under the Articles of Confederation. How did that work out?
Well, we don’t really know.
The Founding Fathers tossed out the Articles of Confederation to create a more centralized (and more powerful) Federal government.
And they did this without input/support of the various states citizens who voted them into their representative positions. A lot of people were disappointed and mighty peeved at what they did.
A lot of people would have been disappointed and mighty peeved no matter what they had done. The AoC was not working. At best, we would have ended up with an EU-like alliance.
If Apple’s customer data privacy rules are being struck down in Germany, then that would seem to bode ill for most other countries, such as Google.
Frankly, I consider Apple’s approach to be much more customer-friendly and responsive to my desires for privacy protection than the approaches of its competitors. I wouldn’t give a plugged nickel for the protection that Google offers.
I meant, most other companies, such as Google. Bad typing day…
Privacy is important.