Apple Agrees to iCloud Class Action Settlement

25 MARCH 2022 - If you paid for extra iCloud storage between mid-September 2015 and the end of January 2016, you’re about to get a little do-re-mi. I’m guessing very little. As part of a class action settlement, Macworld says Apple has agreed to pay $14.8 million “for breach of contract regarding the iCloud Service that Apple provides to its users.”

The problem’s not that you didn’t get the storage. The problem is you didn’t get it from whom you thought you did. Macworld says the “crux of the case is that Apple breached the iCloud Terms and Conditions by storing iCloud user data using third-party servers rather than its own.”

You need take no action, provided you’re using the same email now that you used to sign up for the service - someone will be in touch. As for how much you’ll get, the piece says:

Each person in the class will “receive a pro rata distribution of the Settlement based on the overall payments made by each Class Member for his or her iCloud subscription during the Class Period,” so it depends on how much you spent during the period.

Even if they refunded everything though, the most you might have paid (assuming billing for all five-months) is about $50. It’s not nothin’, but you’re not getting rich. 

For the $14.8 million, Apple comes away holy and blameless. “According to the terms of the settlement,” says Macworld, “Apple ‘maintains that it did nothing wrong and denies that it breached the iCloud Terms and Conditions with any user.’” 

So I guess it’s just paying to be nice then. No need to hit refresh on your email just yet. “A Final Approval Hearing will be held on August 4,” according to the report.