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The tech giant Apple on Thursday agreed to pay $95 million to settle a proposed class action that claimed its voice assistant Siri violated user privacy.
A preliminary settlement was filed Tuesday night in federal court in Oakland, California, which will be subject to approval by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White.
The mobile device owners who brought the complaint alleged that Apple had routinely recorded private conversations after they had inadvertently activated Siri. The suit added that those conversations were then disclosed to third parties, including advertisers who served some ads to users that were tailored to the conversations they had.
Voice assistants like Siri can be opened in response to certain verbal prompts that include “hot words” like “Hey, Siri.”
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Apple (Joe Raedle/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Two of the actors stated that their mentions of Air Jordan sneakers and Olive Garden restaurants incentivized them to receive targeted advertising for those products.
Another plaintiff claimed he had received advertisements for branded surgical treatment after discussing it in what he thought was a private conversation with his doctor.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAPL | APPLE INC. | 243.85 | -6.57 |
-2.62% |
Class members, who are estimated to number in the tens of millions, can receive up to $20 for each Siri device they own, as iPhones and Apple Watches. The class period runs from September 17, 2014 to December 31, 2024, and begins when Siri incorporates the “Hey Siri” feature.
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Signal Apple Inc. at the company’s Fifth Avenue store in New York on Wednesday, May 15, 2024. (Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Apple has denied wrongdoing in agreeing to the deal.
The $95 million settlement amounts to about nine hours of profit for Apple, which had net income of about $93.74 billion in its last fiscal year.
The lawyers are seeking up to $28.5 million in costs, plus $1.1 million in expenses, as compensation from the settlement fund.
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A similar lawsuit is pending on behalf of the user of Google’s voice assistant in a federal court in San Jose that is part of the same district as the Oakland court handling the Apple case. The actors in the Google case are represented by the same companies as in the Apple case.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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2025-01-03 20:50:00
