Italy fines Apple, Samsung for pressuring customers to buy phones via buggy updates
ITALIAN antitrust officials have fined Apple and Samsung, alleging that the phone manufacturers pressured customers to download software updates that led to device malfunctions, which ultimately pushed customers to buy newer products.
The Italian Competition Authority ( ICA) said in a news release that it had fined Samsung and Apple the maximum prescribed amount for the scope and severity of their alleged unfair business practices. The antitrust body fined Samsung 5 million euros (about US$ 5.7 million) and Apple 10 million euros (about US$ 11.4 million). Apple’s fine included a second penalty for allegedly not properly informing customers about the lithium batteries used in iPhones, including their average duration and deterioration factors and how customers should maintain and replace them to preserve a device’s full functionality.
The antitrust agency said the companies induced consumers to download software updates that “caused serious malfunctions and significantly reduced their performance, in this way speeding up their replacement with more recent products.” The ICA also said that a major “information asymmetry” exists between consumers and manufacturers, leaving device owners without the know-how to restore their phone’s full capacity.
The ICA said its investigations targeted Samsung’s Note 4 and Apple’s iPhone 6.
Last year Apple acknowledged that its software slowed down old iPhones as their batteries aged. Lithium-ion batteries become less effective over time and are less capable of holding a charge, which can lead to a device abruptly shutting down.— Washington Post.