The Italian antitrust regulator revealed that i terms and the conditions from iCloud from Apple they are unreasonable and unfair to consumers. It is the latest in a long series of antitrust investigations e cause legali faced by the Cupertino company. Here are the details.
Are the terms and conditions of iCloud, of Apple, really illegal?
A public inquiry and consultation were conducted following complaints and a number of Apple’s terms were deemed illegal. The announcement was made in a report by the Italian Competition Authority.
The report states that all consumer groups that participated in the consultation agreed that the conditions were unbalanced e unfair. In particular, he mentions three elements.
- Apple’s Right to Change the TermsThe terms and conditions of iCloud state that Apple can unilaterally change them at any time, without imposing any concrete limits on the impact of these changes. The contract is based on vague terms that say any change must be “reasonable”, without giving examples.
- Lack of data protections and guarantees: Apple encourages consumers to use iCloud to protect and back up their data. However, the company does not offer any details of the security measures it employs, nor does it offer any guarantees. Indeed, its terms specifically exclude any liability for data loss.
The authority found that the marketing material for iCloud describes it as one secure form of storage and backup, while the terms and conditions do contradict. A given example is that Apple claims it has the right to delete iCloud backups if they are not updated in a period of six months, while most consumers are completely unaware of this, instead believing that their data is safe indefinitely.
- Other disclaimers: The regulator found that the contract makes extensive use of wide-ranging disclaimers, so that the company can absolve itself of any failure without compensating consumers.
The Cupertino company defends the terms and conditions
Apple claims to have changed the terms only twice in five years.
The iPhone maker says it offers a iCloud free tier – the infamous and almost completely useless 5GB – is that cannot be expected that keeps the data free indefinitely. It states that the limits of liability expressly state that they apply only to the maximum permitted by law. This means they cannot break it.
More generally, Apple reveals that those conditions are common to all cloud services, and are designed simply to draw consumers’ attention to the fact that no cloud service is completely risk-free.
At the moment it is not clear what the next step in resolving the dispute will be.