Cost to Settle iPhone Data Tracking Dispute in South Korea: $945

[Phillip Swanson]

Apple's Korean arm of the company paid Kim Hyung-suk, an iPhone user and a lawyer to boot, 1 million won or the equivalent of $946 to settle a suit against the company for collecting location data without consent.

This is the first payout by Apple over the complaints and the fact Apple was willing to shell out some money has already resulted in the preparation of a class action lawsuit against Apple for the unauthorized collection of location data by Hyung-suk's law firm, Mirae Law.

Mirae Law already has a website up where affected iPhone users can sign up to be a part of the class action suit against Apple. The website (www.sueapple.co.kr) crashed due to heavy traffic shortly after going live.

While $946 may not seem like a whole lot of cash, when Apple is forced to pay that amount out to thousands and thousands of people it can quickly add up. A number of class action suits had already been filed in the U.S. before this ruling. I'm pretty sure the U.S. courts don't use international rulings as precedent, but it will be interesting to see how this ruling in the Korean courts affects similar cases here in the U.S.

Source: Reuters

[thetoothfairy]

Forget the money.... If it came to where I got money from Apple I would rather take that money down on a new item I want from their site.

[i.Annie]

Lol toothy, I'm with ya. Turn that money into credits for the Apple Store

Lol toothy, I'll have to give you a great big +1 on that. Apple can be bad but the products are just so enticing.

[unison999]

Forget the money.... If it came to where I got money from Apple I would rather take that money down on a new item I want from their site.

I would bring the check right over to HTC sign it over to get the best Android phone, take a picture with the signed over check with the clerk handing me the Android phone then email it to Jobs.

[0Milk0]

I am sure the majority of people don't necessarily care about the data location with non consent but when money is involved i guarantee a bunch of people will jump on the band wagon to get some cash, because when i seen this post i sure as hell did lol

[alexevo]

Give me the next iphone at $199 + 2 year contract and put the rest of the money towards my at&t bill and i'll be happy.

[spider_romeo]

Apple can give me unlocked iPhone 4 32GB, I'm done....

[whereswaldo]

The sites in korean

[Mes]

The sites in korean

Try: translate.google.com

[HeavyD4]

I honestly don't care if apple is keeping track of were I am, what bothers me is jail breaking is legal and we can do so if we choose to when we purchase a device, but what makes them think they can use our device that we own to do something that is Illegal and just makes them look bad like there being sneaky, maybe if they stopped worrying about our locations they would pay more attention to the fact that there competition is catching up and they need to make products with more improvements instead of making them look almost the same as there older models and there copiers and get back ahead of there competitors.