Three Apple customers has sued the Cupertino company that it unlawfully disclose and sold customer's information on their iTunes purchases, Apple Music and as well their personal data, Bloomberg reports.
The three Apple customers; Leigh Wheaton, Jill Paul and Trevor Paul from Rhode Island and Michigan sued Apple last week Friday in a federal court in San Francisco (California) and also to represent hundreds of thousands of other people who also had their private data disclosed by Apple without their approval.
According to the lawsuit, Apple violated state privacy laws by selling customers' iTunes and Apple Music listening data to third parties which isn't only unlawful but can also be dangerous because it allows for targeting vulnerable members of society.
A line from the lawsuit read:
"For example, any person or entity could rent a list with their names and addresses of all unmarried, college-educated women over the age of 70 with a household income of over $80,000 who purchased country music from Apple via iTunes Store mobile application. Such a list is available for sale for approximately $136 per thousand customer listed."
The lawsuit explained that when Apple sells the data to third parties, those parties could "supplement that information with additional sensitive personal information" that Apple sends about its customers.
Now, the third parties can in turn match the data that they acquire to other sensitive information gatthered about iTunes customers from other third parties. They in turn, will then sell the information in the open market without seeking the users consent.
The lawsuit further claimed that sharing those listening data can reveal intimate information about customers since the data shared includes customers full usernames, home addresses, and in some cases, the genres and song titles of music that customers purchased on iTunes.
The result of this is that affected customers are at risk of predatory behavior from " fraudulent telemarketers" and other people who might want to exploit the information that they have.
The lawsuit is seeking for $250 for each Rhode Island iTunes customer and $5,00 for each Michigan iTunes customer.