For this, no one expected it: Judge Felipe Poyares Miranda, from the 16th Civil Court of São Paulo, has just announced his decision on a lawsuit brought by PROTESTE (Brazilian Consumer Protection Association) regarding alleged misleading advertisements run by Apple in the country – and, lo and behold, the Apple seems to have done badly in this one.
The whole problem revolves around the storage capacity announced of iGadgets sold by Apple – reported in the lawsuit, specifically, are the iPhones 5s and 6 and the iPads Air, Air 2, mini 2 and mini 3. According to the association that moved the process, Apple deceives the consumer because the usable space in these devices is lower than the one announced by her.
This, as is well known, is a paradigm that affects any electronic device with internal memory – this post exemplifies this well -, but the Justice judged that Apple practices “deceptive offer”, since, according to the determination, more than 3GB of the devices’ capacity is occupied by elements such as the operating system and pre-installed applications.
Now, Apple must, within 30 days, remove said deceptive advertisements from circulation and correct any type of information about previously reported irregular storage capacity; if you fail to comply with the determination, you must pay a daily fine of R $ 100 thousand. All advertising of these devices, from now on, should also have reservations about the memory available for consumer use.
In their defense, the Apple team of lawyers denies that there is misleading advertising in practice; according to the company, the devices really have the capacity informed to the consumer and it would be impossible to say with precision how much of the memory would be occupied by native elements and how much would be effectively available at the moment the device is turned on for the first time. In addition, says Apple, the company’s website already has a technical explanation of the vicissitudes of storage capacity; finally, Apple says its consumers buy their iGadgets for a number of reasons and not just for the purpose of storing data.
Despite this, it is not yet clear whether Apple will appeal the decision.
tip from Guilherme M. Carrega, via Folha de S.Paulo
