Apple Inc., along with some of its mobile application developers, is facing a couple of class action lawsuits for allegedly collecting and releasing personal information of its product users to advertisers.
According to the complaint, which was filed last Thursday in a San Jose, California federal court by Jonathan Lalo of Los Angeles, several of Apple's iPhones and iPads are encoded with identifying devices that allow advertising networks to track what applications users download, how frequently they're used and for how long.
"Some apps are also selling additional information to ad networks, including users' location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views," the suit states, explaining that the identifying device is impossible to be deactivated.
In Lalo's suit, applications named include Pandora, Paper Toss, the Weather Channel, and Discovery.com as the lawsuit seeks class-action status for Apple customers who downloaded an application to their iPhone or iPad devices between December 1, 2008 and mid-December.
In addition, a second suit - Freeman vs. Apple - was filed against Apple in which Apple, Inc. allegedly assigns an identifying number to each of its iPhones and iPads and then transmits that information along with the devices' location data to third-party advertisers.
All of this is done without the consumers' consent, the suit says, and in violation of their legal rights.
Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs on Monday announced that he will take a medical leave from the technology company.
