Consumer Sovereignty Citizens' Meeting Files Police Complaint Against Apple and Tim Cook for "Performance-Reducing Updates Without Just Cause"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Jung-yoon] A consumer organization has reported Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple Korea CEO Daniel Dischico to the police, alleging that the 2017 update conducted by Apple violated the Information and Communications Network Act.

On the 13th, the Consumer Sovereignty Citizens' Association held a press conference in front of the Gangnam Police Station in Seoul, claiming, "Apple installed software that caused performance degradation by updating the iPhone operating system (iOS) in 2017 without legitimate reasons or prior explanation."

They stated, "The software update and subsequent updates conducted by Apple at that time have the characteristic of reducing iPhone performance by 36% to over 57%," and added, "CEO Tim Cook violated the Information and Communications Network Act by not clearly notifying users of this."

The Consumer Sovereignty Citizens' Association added, "While Apple has paid fines, penalties, and even compensation settlements in other countries regarding the same incident, consumers in our country have been completely ignored and neglected."

Previously, Apple applied operating system software updates that degraded the performance of iPhone 6 and 7 models in 2017. Apple explained, "The update was to prevent the device from shutting down when the battery is old," but users raised suspicions that "the performance degradation update was intentionally applied to sell newer iPhones."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.