The suit, filed on December 23 in federal court in San Jose, California, seeks class-action status. It alleges that the apps have access to "a huge amount of information about a mobile device user" such as contact lists, usernames and passwords, plus information about the user's gender, age and income. The plaintiffs charge that sharing such information violates federal fraud and privacy laws and seek class-action status for Apple customers who downloaded apps on their iPhone or iPad between December 1, 2008 and last week.
The suit, filed on behalf of Jonathan Lalo of Los Angeles County, alleges that Apple and the app makers are able to track consumers' personal data because iPhones and iPads feature a global unique device identifier (UDID), a "string of electronically readable characters and/or numbers that is stored in a particular device or file." Other parties named in the suit include Pandora, Dictionary.com and The Weather Channel.