Italian regulator says Apple's iCloud terms are unreasonable, may be illegal
The antitrust authority in Italy has concluded its investigation into Apple, Google, and others, and concluded that some of Apple's iCloud conditions are unlawful.
Apple Store Piazza in Milan
A year after it began investigating Apple, Google, and Dropbox's cloud service, Italy's L'Autorit Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM) has issued a report.
The Guarantee Authority for Competition and the Market, takes issue with three key elements of cloud computing agreements. Those are the company's rights to change the terms at any time, the degree by which the firms attempt to escape any liability, and a lack of transparency over data security.
Regarding Apple, Google, and Dropbox, the regulator says that contract terms and agreements are unfairly biased in favor of the companies.
Perhaps more surprisingly, in the case of Apple, the Italian report surfaces a little-known aspect of iCloud data security.
"If a device has not backed up to iCloud for a period of one hundred and eighty (180) days," the report quotes (in translation), "Apple reserves the right to delete backups associated with that device."
So if a user doesn't use their iCloud account at all for six months -- including any health app data recording, or device settings -- then Apple may delete it all. Italy's AGCM says most users are unaware of this.
Similarly, it argues that Apple users are not informed of how the company secures and backs up customers' data in iCloud. Instead, they are merely encouraged to make their own backups as well, which the authority again says most users will not know.
Apple has contributed to the investigation and commented on each of these points. Its representatives, for instance, claimed that its terms and conditions cannot be in breach of the law, because they specify that they apply only to the extent allowed by those laws.
The report nonetheless concludes that Apple, and others, have unfair terms which may be illegal. What the report does not do, though, is specify any remedies, nor indicate what the Italian authorities intend to do with this conclusion.
AGCM has previously also ruled against Apple over the company's intentional slowing down of iPhones with chemically depleted and worn batteries.
Read on AppleInsider
Apple Store Piazza in Milan
A year after it began investigating Apple, Google, and Dropbox's cloud service, Italy's L'Autorit Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM) has issued a report.
The Guarantee Authority for Competition and the Market, takes issue with three key elements of cloud computing agreements. Those are the company's rights to change the terms at any time, the degree by which the firms attempt to escape any liability, and a lack of transparency over data security.
Regarding Apple, Google, and Dropbox, the regulator says that contract terms and agreements are unfairly biased in favor of the companies.
Perhaps more surprisingly, in the case of Apple, the Italian report surfaces a little-known aspect of iCloud data security.
"If a device has not backed up to iCloud for a period of one hundred and eighty (180) days," the report quotes (in translation), "Apple reserves the right to delete backups associated with that device."
So if a user doesn't use their iCloud account at all for six months -- including any health app data recording, or device settings -- then Apple may delete it all. Italy's AGCM says most users are unaware of this.
Similarly, it argues that Apple users are not informed of how the company secures and backs up customers' data in iCloud. Instead, they are merely encouraged to make their own backups as well, which the authority again says most users will not know.
Apple has contributed to the investigation and commented on each of these points. Its representatives, for instance, claimed that its terms and conditions cannot be in breach of the law, because they specify that they apply only to the extent allowed by those laws.
The report nonetheless concludes that Apple, and others, have unfair terms which may be illegal. What the report does not do, though, is specify any remedies, nor indicate what the Italian authorities intend to do with this conclusion.
AGCM has previously also ruled against Apple over the company's intentional slowing down of iPhones with chemically depleted and worn batteries.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
I'm so tired of the nanny state removing the responsibility from the user, who voluntarily signed up, for the user's poor decision making process. Read the agreement before joining. It is actually that simple.
Of course. Just another government looking to get a piece of the Apple cash cow. Really, a clause stating they have the legal right to delete backups that are never used and in accordance with applicable laws? That's what they are hanging their hats on? Typical.
It's funny people say government imposing crazy laws to protect citizen rights and assets but you do realise the USA legal system also only allows enforcement of T&C as long as they are legal.
Basically, I'll bet that Apple has a bunch of backups from abandoned (and probably no longer existing) devices and AppleIDs that they don't want to have to keep forever which were taken using the free 5 GB tier. A clarification from Apple would be good on that policy item.
For those circumstances, a good requirement would be three mandatory periodic attempts to contact the owner using all contact methods registered with the AppleID that the data in the backup(s) would be deleted before taking action. Apple probably doesn't want to delete the AppleID in case the owner somedays wants to return to the fold, but keeping around ancient backups is counter-productive because everything in them is probably out of date.
This is the problem with offering free anything - people tend to migrate away from it and not clean up after themselves. If the option required a fee, you can bet they'd take whatever action was needed before leaving.
As for invalidating items in the TOS because no one reads them: what?
Betcha there's lots of things in Italian law that no one reads, but are still enforced by Italian authorities.
A problem with a lot of the EU is they're getting left back in the twentieth century when Europe was the center of world power, and they're offended - but that's really a problem with local governments and policies and their failure to keep up with the times. This seems like a self-inflicted wound, and one which local authorities need to address themselves.
Not really sure what that (or this article) has to do with the EU. European countries yes, but not the EU. There are countries inside Europe that aren't, in fact, in the EU.
But talking about keeping up with the times, how's that second amendment from the 18th century serving you today? Rhetorical question, by the way.