A California district court docket on Monday denied a request by Apple to throw out a category motion lawsuit that alleges the iPhone maker violates competitors legal guidelines by forcing customers of its gadgets to again up their essential recordsdata and machine settings on its cloud storage service, iCloud.
The grievance additionally accuses Apple of not permitting third-party cloud providers to entry sure recordsdata, and stopping them from providing a “full-service” storage that competes with iCloud.
U.S. District Judge Eumi Lee had beforehand dismissed the case, saying the plaintiffs didn’t sufficiently state a declare. The plaintiffs then filed a second amended grievance earlier this yr, and the decide discovered the brand new arguments enough to disclaim Apple’s request to dismiss the case.
The plaintiffs declare that Apple holds a monopoly within the cloud-based storage marketplace for iPhones, each when it comes to income and person numbers.
For context, Apple lets customers of its gadgets again up information like photographs, movies, and different paperwork from their gadgets to any cloud storage service of their selection, however customers can’t backup gadgets’ core information to those providers, nor restore them.
In its movement to dismiss, Apple defended its determination to restrict third-party cloud apps from accessing core information, together with app information and machine settings, citing safety causes.
“That design determination was and at all times has been a function grounded in safety and privateness concerns, given the sensitivity of the information required to revive one’s Apple machine,” the corporate wrote.
Apple didn’t instantly return a request for remark.
