Apple, along with certain app makers, may have to financially compensate people who used certain apps on their iPhone between 2009 and 2012. It is said to be due to the fact that app makers like Instagram, Twitter and Yelp had accessed contact lists on several iPhones and stored them in their server without any prior information to the users.
According to The Next Web, the companies are offering $5.3 million to settle the five-year-old suit filed against them for allegedly violating users' privacy. The companies have been making efforts to wave off the allegations since 2012, saying that the data collected was required for serving customer needs. But it was turned down by the court of law as a not strong enough reason.
Sources say that any claim made regarding this lawsuit is to be settled by cheque or Amazon credits. However, the app users who are to be compensated from this lawsuit settlement might not see a very large amount of money coming their way. The eligibility of the users will be decided by certain company prescribed parameters.
According to Fortune, the request from the accused companies to consider their cause of using the details for making the "Find Friends" app on iPhone better was completely opposed by the US District Judge Jon Tigar. He said that the companies should have been much more explicit in their approach regarding the usage of personal data of people.
Reportedly, the judge has to approve the settlement between the accused companies and the customers before it becomes effective. By doing this, Apple and LinkedIn will be left as the only firms among the 18 companies originally involved as a part of this case.
The settlement also calls for the accused companies to inform the affected customers from this unauthorized usage of private data well in advance via emails or by tweeting with the prompted twitter handle "@settlementnews". Apart from Apple, Instagram and Twitter, popular social media platforms like Foursquare, Kik, Gowalla, Foodspotting, Yelp and Path are also allegedly part of this controversial case.
