iPhone owners could be set for a £750 windfall from tracking-addict Google.
Aaron Brown for The Daily Mail:
The multinational search company faces mass legal action over claims it quietly tracked millions of iPhone users in the UK.
Google siphoned personal data, including information on physical and mental heath, political affiliations, sexuality and sexual interests from iPhone users and used it to divide people into categories for advertisers, the High Court heard.
The Mountain View company is being sued by a collective calling itself ‘Google You Owe Us’, which is being led by former Which? director Richard Lloyd.
Some 4.4 million iPhone users are believed to have been affected.
‘Google You Owe Us’ hopes to win compensation of at least £1 billion, however, court filings reveal the collective is looking for a maximum payout of £3.2 billion.
That would amount to £750 per iPhone user.
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s to Google being docked the maximum amount!
According to “Google You Owe Us,” approximately 5.4 million individuals were affected between 2011 and 2012 or a million more than is being reported above. That works out to a maximum of £592.59 (US$728.83) per victim.
Individuals who meet the criteria can answer yes to the following:
a) Were you at any time between 1 June 2011 and 15 February 2012 present in England and Wales and whilst present:
i) Did you have an Apple ID?
ii) Did you own or were you in lawful possession of an iPhone?
iii) Did you use the Safari browser to access the internet?
iv) Did you keep the default security settings in the Safari browser?
v) Did you not opt-out of tracking and collation via Google’s “Ads preference Manager”?
b) Were you resident in England and Wales on 31 May 2017?
If the case is successful, members of the claimant class will be asked to register in order to receive money they are owed.
More info: https://www.youoweus.co.uk
I am British and owned an iPhone during that time (and ever since). I am not an ambulance chaser and hate sue culture. However…I will make an exception in this case and take any and all money I can from Alphabet because hey are he scum of the earth, they are inhuman.
But! As always MDN are full of shit, this case was thrown out and then later opened back for review on the agreement that each eligible candidate would only receive what the lowest denominator of damages Would be awarded. So basically peanuts for one and all! How do I know this? Because I read the facts which MDN clearly didn’t.
MDN time to grow up? Remember that “N” denotes “News”?
Good!
Google almost always wins their cases. British users aren’t going to get any money from Google. Maybe Google should just settle and send all their victims a one-pound note for their trouble. Data-siphoning companies are the most profitable around and usually get away with it. Consumers want their “free” services and that how they pay for it. In most cases everyone is happy as very few consumers are concerned about their personal data. Most of the people I know simply shrug their shoulders when it comes to personal data. Android has dominate market share percentage and that’s how it will stay. Almost no one is going to give up using Android or those “free” services. Both Google and Facebook are untouchable thanks in part to loyal users/addicts who can’t break free from those services, so there’s really nothing much to worry about on Google’s part.
Tim Cook always makes me laugh when he champions the cause for personal privacy and big tech companies. However, whenever privacy concerns are voiced, Apple is almost always included in articles as one of the offenders of personal privacy. Apple is usually just lumped in with Google, Amazon and Facebook and any other data-crooks despite getting no revenue from data-mining. Most consumers probably think every big tech company is stealing/using their data and it really doesn’t matter to them, anyway. So many people are just loading their homes with eavesdropping devices and are perfectly happy about it. No court order necessary for voluntary bug-planting.
Tim Cook is 100% correct on this issue and I support him fully on privacy. Maybe Apple has been lame on product refresh and bringing new and brilliant items to market but they are the ones I’ve trusted since 1982.
Hi… I have been using iPhone for ages but moved to UK in 2015…can i still apply?