Many large companies, such as Facebook and Google, have been accused of violating the privacy of their users. This time, Apple was in the spotlight after a lawsuit was filed against it. According to the accusations, Apple was disclosing users' audio data, from the iTunes application, to other companies. It seems that this is not a mistake that shared the data, but a conscious move by Apple.
The lawsuit was filed by three individuals. The users claim that the company shared their data without their consent. This is not a trivial matter, since it includes information such as name, age, address and history of music preferences on iTunes.
Apple, of course, makes a profit from all this. It sells the data for $136. The number of users affected is about 1,000. Other companies want this data to create user profiles. For example, a company might be interested in a specific segment of people, e.g. single, educated women, 70 years old and older, with an income of over $80,000, who have purchased country music from Apple's iTunes Store. So they use Apple to get more information about these women.
With this data, third-party companies could continuously display ads to users, which is usually annoying. Furthermore, there could be further exposure of personal data, as it is possible that these companies send the data elsewhere.
The three users who filed the lawsuit are from Rhode Island and Michigan (2 from Rhode Island and 1 from Michigan). They are seeking damages of $250/user in Rhode Island and $5000 for the user from Michigan.
Additionally, there are allegations of providing access to users' audio data without their permission through special tools. This issue has been reported in the past. In 2016, David Benson informed Apple about this issue. The company did not immediately respond. It took eight months for the patch.
Apple has not yet commented on the lawsuit. This is a significant allegation, given that it has always portrayed itself as a company that cares about and protects the privacy of its users.
