Millions of iPhone owners in UK could be entitled to £70 compensation each

Apple is facing a near-£3 BILLION UK lawsuit over cloud storage ‘monopoly’. The legal claim is being brought by Which? and the consumer group claimed that about 40 million Apple customers in the UK could be entitled to a payout averaging £70 each if the action is successful.

Apple said it rejected the Which? accusations and would “vigorously defend” itself against any legal claim. Which? has launched a £3 billion claim against Apple, claiming the tech giant has breached competition law by ‘forcing its iCloud services on customers.’

It says Apple encouraged users to sign up for an iCloud subscription to store photos, videos and other data and is therefore favouring its own products, while simultaneously making it difficult to use alternative products, ultimately stifling competition.

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Which? has instructed an international law firm and said the class action involved all UK consumers who had paid for iCloud services since 1 October 2015. The lawsuit argued that Apple had breached UK competition law “by giving its iCloud storage service preferential treatment, ‘trapping’ customers with Apple devices into using iCloud”.

It said Apple’s iOS mobile operating system “has a monopoly … and it is incumbent on Apple not to use that dominance to gain an unfair advantage in related markets, like the cloud storage market”.

Which? said Apple had been encouraging users to sign up to iCloud “while simultaneously making it difficult to use alternative providers, including because Apple does not allow customers to store or back up all of their phone’s data with a third-party provider”.

Anabel Hoult, the consumer group’s chief executive, said: “We believe Apple customers are owed nearly £3bn.” In a statement, Apple said: “Our users are not required to use iCloud, and many rely on a wide range of third-party alternatives for data storage.

“In addition, we work hard to make data transfer as easy as possible – whether it’s to iCloud or another service. We reject any suggestion that our iCloud practices are anti-competitive and will vigorously defend against any legal claim otherwise.”