Apple Wins Class Action Lawsuit In Meltdown And Specter Cases

JAKARTA - A US judge on Wednesday, June 8 rejected a class-action lawsuit filed by several people who accused Apple Inc of defrauding customers by selling iPhones and iPads whose processors proved vulnerable to two cybersecurity flaws, which were first disclosed in 2018.

US District Judge Edward Davila, in San Jose, Calif., said customers failed to prove they were overpaying for their devices because Apple deliberately concealed the flaw, and provided security patches that made their devices much slower.

The lawsuit was filed after Apple and other companies including Alphabet Inc's Google disclosed the Meltdown and Specter flaws, which could allow hackers to access computers and steal the contents of their memories, in January 2018.

Apple customers claim that the Cupertino, California-based company learned about the flaw in June 2017, but didn't say anything until after the New York Times reported the flaw.

Davila, said customers did not indicate they were relying on Apple's marketing, and that the company's assertion that its products were "safe" and made "with your privacy in mind" was too general to support their claims.

The judge also said it was not wrong or misleading for Apple to claim that newer processors are faster and last longer than older processors, simply because a patch might degrade performance.

"Plaintiffs have failed to allege misstatement, actionable negligence, and actual reliance" on misstatements by Apple," Davila said.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the ruling. While Davila said they could withdraw their claim on June 30.

The glitch in Meltdown only affected chips from Intel Corp, while Specter affected nearly all chips made in the previous decade.

Earlier, Apple said similar lawsuits had previously been rejected against other manufacturers including Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD).