Yesterday, the DGCCRF rightly condemned Apple (no offense to Gruber) for ” deceptive marketing practice by omission “ in the BatteryGate case.
In addition to the 25 million euros claimed, Apple France has been ordered to publish the conviction on its page dedicated to the iPhone :
During the month of December 2017, the public prosecutor of the Paris tribunal de grande instance received a complaint from a consumer association. This complaint relates to the Apple group, for facts which would have consisted in particular in the diffusion of updates of the operating system iOS causing a slowing down of certain iPhones, without having previously informed the customers and users.
At the end of its investigation, the National Service of Investigations of the DGCCRF estimates that the Apple group committed the crime of deceptive commercial practice by omission (article L. 121-3 of the code of consumption) by not revealing to consumers and users , the presence of a dynamic power management system included in iOS updates from version 10.2.1 and which, under certain conditions, slow the operation of iPhones of categories 6, 7 and SE, in particular those equipped with old batteries. A crime report was sent to the public prosecutor.
With the agreement of the public prosecutor, a significant transactional fine was proposed to Apple Inc., which accepted it.
Hopefully the Apple will think twice now before slowing down customers’ devices without warning them, even if the stated aim was to preserve the condition of batteries deemed too old.
