Apple Inc. has won over a suit that claimed the company's iMessage system was illegally intercepting and failing to deliver text messages to Android phones.
A lawsuit was filed against Apple by plaintiffs Adam Backhaut, Bouakhay Joy Backhaut and Kenneth Morris claiming that iMessage was rigged not to deliver messages to Android smartphones. They had switched from an iPhone to Android smartphones in 2012 and allegedly said that Apple was violating the Federal Wire Tap Act, which Apple denied.
United Stated Federal judge, Judge Lucy Koh, has dismissed a lawsuit arguing that Apple effectively wiretapped iMessage chats to prevent them from reaching Android users. There is no mention of the reasons for dismissal in the court order.
However, Apple had asked the judge to dismiss the case when it learned that two of the plaintiffs dumped their iPhones after the case began, eliminating the important evidence, according to Ubergizmo.
The Court has granted the Motion for Summary Judgment filed by Defendant Apple Inc. The Clerk of the Court shall enter judgment in favor of Defendant. The Clerk shall close the file.
Apple spokesperson said the company takes customer satisfaction extremely seriously, but the law does not provide a remedy when technology simply does not function well as the plaintiff subjectively believes it should, Digital Trends reported.
A separate plaintiff in California went one step further, arguing that that Apple ran afoul of unfair competition laws by in effect favoring its own devices in message delivery and failing to notify customers who’d moved to other platforms of the bug.
Indeed, many of the current advanced messaging services carriers have been rolling out of late offer similar features to iMessage, including read receipts and the ability to see when the other party is typing.