Apple has paid a court ordered 1 million won (about US$946) fine in an iPhone tracking-related lawsuit in Korea. The big payout went to Kim Hyung-suk who sued Apple over claims that the company was tracking iPhone user’s locations without permission, according to Reuters.
Apple pays up 1 million won in iPhone tracking lawsuit
The Korean lawsuit followed public concern over reports that the iPhone was keeping detailed logs showing the locations users have visited. Apple said that the location data stored on user’s iPhones wasn’t being downloaded, and added that the local database was filled with nearby cell towers to help location-based services performance.
Apple later released an iOS update that limited the number of locations stored in the database, stopped the database from backing up during iTunes syncing, and gave users a way to delete the database from their devices.
Kim Hyung-suk, the plaintiff in the Korean lawsuit, also happens to be an attorney and he now plans to launch a class action lawsuit against Apple over the iPhone’s location tracking.
Apple has not commented on the lawsuit or planned class action case.
5 Comments Leave Your Own
Wrong precedent to set. Now all the American money grabbers/leaches will start a class-action suit and demand a whole lot more (for absolutely nothing).
I wonder how the Korean court determined any significant personal information was even kept. As far as not getting permission, if Kim had read everything (which I doubt anybody reads) he would have seen that the tracking information isn’t personal but we have enough lawyers to tell him otherwise.
As for the graphic, it would look better if you used nine $100’s, two $20s, and four $1 to show how meaningless the fine was instead of showing a large stack of money. The lawyers and court probably got most of it so Kim can now purchase a few songs while leaving location services turned on so his iPhone is usable.
He is a lawyer. I wonder how much of this is politics, business politics, to help Korea’s smart phone industry.
OK, prl53, I liked your graphic idea so much that I made a new one for the article. I went with a variation on your theme because I really liked how the pile of coins looks. Thanks for the suggestion!
Harry,
I highly doubt this has anything to do with “helping” Korea’s smart phone industry.
South Korea has had the most advanced mobile industry in the world for quite some time. They beat the pants off of AT&T and the iPhone.
Jeff, You’re quick! Did you break your piggy bank to get those?
Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korean_won and get the real stuff. Using 50K won notes (don’t have the Korean keyboard to include the proper double slashed W), you’d only need to stack 20 of them.
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