Tech giant Apple agreed to pay out a $95 million settlement. They aren’t admitting a thing but it’s costing their customers a fortune to keep the controversial secrets. They were accused of allowing the devices to listen in on people’s conversations without permission.
Apple pays for secrecy
Tech pioneer Apple started off the new year by paying their way out of a tricky lawsuit. Their lawyers are breathing a heavy sigh of relief because the outcome might have been much worse.
All they have to do is write a check for $95,000,000 to the plaintiffs. Plus legal fees and costs. That’s nothing to the company. They’ll simply add it to the price of their products and pass it along to the consumer.
The important part for Apple is that they don’t have to admit, deny or confirm any of the scandalous allegations. Their built in virtual assistant Siri apparently has a nasty habit of eavesdropping on customers.
Another thing they don’t want the public to know about is the way they allegedly sold voice recordings to advertisers.
Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t but the public won’t find out for sure now. Some say that answers the question conclusively. That may be true but you can’t take anyone to court over the issue ever again.
Apple customers should assume that the devices are listening to everything the microphone can pick up. Whether it’s in the range of human hearing or not.
$20 per device
In a preliminary statement issued by Apple, they emphasize that they’re not admitting any wrongdoing. They specifically deny claims that they “recorded, disclosed to third parties, or failed to delete, conversations recorded as the result of a Siri activation” without consent.
That’s a weasel worded statement because they’re accused of doing that with information obtained without Siri being activated. “Claimants say the tech firm recorded people who activated the virtual assistant unintentionally – without using the phrase ‘Hey, Siri‘ to wake it.”
The lawyers promise that they’ll personally confirm the company really has “permanently deleted individual Siri audio recordings collected by Apple prior to October 2019.”
They aren’t saying what will happen to ones later than that date. There’s a tentative date set for February 14 to hold an approval hearing in Oakland, California.
In class action suits, a small number of plaintiffs file on behalf of all those who might be affected. The $95 million settlement pot gets split between all the players.
In this suit against Apple, each U.S. based claimant “could be paid up to $20 per Siri-enabled device they owned between 2014 and 2019.” The only big winners are the lawyers. “In this case, the lawyers could take 30% of the fee plus expenses – which comes to just under $30 million.“
