Apple fined 10M Euros by Italian Competition Authority, Apple wins Anti-trust Lawsuit and Microsoft’s Productivity Score Tool criticized for Privacy issues.
Apple fined 10M Euros by Italian Competition Authority
Apple has recently been fined by the Italian Competition Authority, Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM), for making false claims regarding the waterproofing of its iPhones. The ACGM stated that Apple was ambiguous about its water resistance claims, since Apple’s claims about iPhones being water resistant for up to 30 minutes at depths of up to four meters only apply in certain circumstances like controlled lab tests with pure water. Further, ACGM “also criticized Apple’s disclaimer that said water damage is not covered as part of the iPhone’s warranty, despite marketing the phones’ water resistance.”
In addition to this, it was also found that Apple was not giving its customers enough information about its devices’ batteries, as well as throttling the performance of older iPhones without warning. Based on these findings, the ACGM fined Apple a total of 10 million Euros.
Apple wins Anti-trust Lawsuit
The email app maker Blitz Inc. had filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, against Apple, accusing the technology company of manipulating search results in its iOS and MacOS App Stores to suppress competition. Blix claimed that its email app known as BlueMail was removed from the App Store, after Apple copied Blix’s patented messaging technology for its “Sign in with Apple” feature. Further, Blix alleged that the tech company used the App store search results to push consumers towards Apple products and suppress third- party competition.
The court however, was of the opinion that Blix had failed to provide direct or indirect evidence against of Apple’s monopoly of power or anti-competitive conduct in violation of the Sherman Act. Additionally, Blix’s anti-competitive claims also failed because the company itself stated that BlueMail had achieved success on multiple platforms and was sold in the market for five years before becoming available on the App Store, thereby showing that Apple was not essential for BlueMail’s success. Based on these grounds the court dismissed Blix’s anti-competitive claims against Apple.
Microsoft’s Productivity Score Tool criticized for Privacy issues
Microsoft’s Productivity Score tool, is one of the key pieces of the way Microsoft touts its ability to provide users and managers with insights about how people are spending their time, as well as how and where Microsoft 365 is installed inside of organizations. The service provides scores around communication, meetings, content collaboration, teamwork, mobility, endpoint analytics, network connectivity, and Microsoft 365 App health, each with a total of 100 possible points.
After receiving several privacy complaints from users, Microsoft stated that it will be changing the interface to clarify that Productivity Score measures organizational adoption of tech, not individual user behavior.
Authored and compiled by Neharika Vhatkar (Associate, BananaIP Counsels)
The IP, Privacy and Antitrust Law News Bulletin is brought to you by the Consulting/Strategy Division of BananaIP Counsels, a Top IP Firm in India. If you have any questions, or need any clarifications, please write to contact@bananaip.com with the subject: IP, Privacy and Antitrust Law News.
Disclaimer: Please note that the news bulletin has been put together from different sources, primary and secondary, and BananaIP’s reporters may not have verified all the news published in the bulletin. You may write to contact@bananaip.com for corrections and take down.
