Koreans Seek $25 Million From Apple Over iPhone Location-Tracking

The fall-out from Apple's iPhone location-tracking has been most notable in South Korea. The Korean government determined that the iPhone's automatically keeping track of owners' movements was illegal and fined the company 3 million won (while that sounds huge, it translates to a measly $2,855). Additionally, a court ordered Apple to pay iPhone-using lawyer, Kim Hyung-suk, one million won in a civil suit against the company. Now Kim Hyung-suk is back, and he brought 27,000 other iPhone users with him. Bloomberg reports that they've filed a class action suit against Apple seeking the going rate in compensation -- one million won each, or about $25 million dollars.

As GigaOm says, "one win could cost Apple lots of won." After Kim Hyung-suk won his first case against Apple, the company refused to fork over the $930 the court had awarded him. A local newspaper reports that the court then seized the money from Apple Korea's coffers. Given the precedent in South Korea of a government finding against it and a previous civil suit decided against it, Apple's in quite a pickled kimchi.

The company is also facing class-action lawsuits in the U.S. over its iPad and iPhone tracking. From what we've seen so far, it seems like the South Korean legal system moves much faster than that in the U.S.

After researchers discovered the tracking back in April, the company quickly fixed the "bug" responsible for the persistent tracking and that was allowing the devices to keep tracking people even when they turned location settings off. While that was relatively easy, fixing its legal problems won't be. As TechCrunch observes, the company will surely fight this suit hard to prevent a waterfall of similar litigation in other countries.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/koreans-seek-25-million-apple-over-iphone-location-145652513.html;_ylt=Ar85vJDDgeTMv5UG5XUFiwsxVrIF;_ylu=X3oDMTM1bTIzdnBoBHBrZwMxMTViYmE0My03ZDI1LTNiMzctOWE5NC0zYTRkZGFlNmZjMjcEcG9zAzEEc2VjA3RvcF9zdG9yeQR2ZXIDYWE5MmQwNjAtYzhlMS0xMWUwLThmYmUtZmM5OGEyMzk0OGRh;_ylg=X3oDMTI4MXA4bGVjBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdAN0ZWNofGFwcGxlLW1hY2ludG9zaARwdANzZWN0aW9ucwR0ZXN0Aw--;_ylv=3