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Tech giant Apple on Thursday agreed to pay $95 million to settle a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging that its Siri voice assistant violated user privacy.
AND preliminary settlement it was filed Tuesday night in federal court in Oakland, California, and will have to be approved by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White.
The mobile device owners who filed the complaint alleged that Apple routinely recorded private conversations after they inadvertently activated Siri. The lawsuit adds that those conversations were then disclosed to third parties, including advertisers who served some users with ads that were tailored to the conversations they had.
Voice assistants like Siri can be opened in response to certain verbal prompts that include “hot words” like “Hey, Siri.”
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Apple (Joe Raedle/Getty Images/Getty Images)
Two plaintiffs argued that their mention Air Jordan sneakers and Olive Garden restaurants encouraged them to receive targeted ads for those products.
Another plaintiff claimed he received advertisements for the brand’s surgical treatment after discussing it in what he thought was a private conversation with his doctor.
| Ticker | Safety | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AAPL | APPLE INC. | 243.36 | -0.49 |
-0.20% |
Class members, estimated to number in the tens of millions, can receive up to $20 for each Siri-enabled device, such as iPhone and Apple watches. The teaching period runs from September 17, 2014 to December 31, 2024, and began when Siri turned on the “Hey Siri” feature.
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Mark of Apple Inc. at the company’s Fifth Avenue store in New York on Wednesday, May 15, 2024. (Photo: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Apple denied wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement.
The $95 million settlement is roughly nine hours’ worth of earnings for Apple, which had net income of about $93.74 billion in its most recent fiscal year.
The lawyers are seeking up to $28.5 million in fees, plus $1.1 million in costs, as compensation from the settlement fund.
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A similar lawsuit is pending on behalf of the user Google’s voice assistant in federal court in San Jose, which is part of the same district as the Oakland court handling the Apple case. The plaintiffs in the Google case are represented by the same companies as in the Apple case.
Reuters contributed to this report.
