South Korean lawyer to launch class action against Apple
15 Jul 2011
A lawyer in South Korea announced yesterday that he would lead a class action against Apple Inc for privacy violation with its iPhone ''tracker'' device.
Apple's response is now eagerly awaited. Whether Apple would aggressively defend against the litigation which may involve majority of the 3 million iPhone users in the country and inflict billions of won in losses on the business giant is being debated.
According to MiraeLaw law firm, a lawyer associated with it, Kim Hyeong-seok, launched the website www.sueapple.co.kr on Thursday and looked for people who would volunteer to take on Apple in a fresh round of litigation to set an example of mobile privacy protection. The website had to be shut down due to heavy traffic.
Kim's moves came a couple of weeks following a ruling he won from Changwon District Court last month. The court ordered Apple to pay him 1 million won ($925) for lax management of the information it gathered through the tracker service.
Computer expert Alasdair Allan had revealed earlier this year, that the iPhone tracked the locations which users visited saving every detail in a secret file on the deivce, which is then copied to the owner's computer when the two are synchronised. He said the data could be retrieved without the permission of the user and is stored for up to a year, he said.
What the court found problematic was not the fact that the device had a tracking programme installed but the fact that the information was not sufficiently well encrypted to prevent leakage and possible abuse.
