Elon Musk is getting sued again, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to stop data brokers from selling user location and health data, and iPhone users could be eligible for payouts following legal claims.
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That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Friday, June 17, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Elon Musk, SpaceX and Tesla have been sued for $258 billion over claims that they are part of a racketeering scheme to back the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, a Bloomberg article reported. Plaintiff Keith Johnson, claims that he was defrauded out of money by the companies’ Dogecoin Crypto Pyramid Scheme and that their illegal racketeering enterprise inflated the price of Dogecoin. Johnson further accused Musk’s companies of playing up Dogecoin as a legitimate investment even though “it has no value at all.” He is seeking to represent a group of people who lost money trading Dogecoin since April 2019. In addition to asking for $258 billion in damages, he’s also asking for an order that blocks Musk and the companies from promoting Dogecoin, while declaring that Dogecoin trading constitutes gambling under U.S. and New York law.
Source: Bloomberg
A bill introduced by Senator Elizabeth Warren aims to protect Americans’ location and health data. Warren’s proposed bill, called the Health and Location Data Protection Act, would prohibit data brokers from selling location and health data and would require the FTC to enact rules to implement the law within 180 days. Personal data sales are illegal in some cases. In 2020, after T-Mobile, AT&T, and others were caught selling their customers’ real-time location data to third-party data brokers without consent, the FCC chairperson proposed fines which totalled $208 million. Warren’s bill would let the FTC, state attorneys general, and anyone affected by illegal data sales to file lawsuits seeking financial damages and injunctions.
Source: Ars Technica
Millions of iPhone users could be eligible for payouts, after legal claims accusing Apple of purposefully slowing the performance of older phones were rolled out. Consumer rights activist Justin Gutmann alleges the company misled users over an upgrade which was supposed to enhance performance but instead, slowed the phones down. He is seeking damages of around $918 million for up to 25 million U.K. iPhone users. In response, Apple says it has never intentionally shortened the life of its products. According to the BBC, Gutmann claims that the company used this tactic to hide that the iPhone battery may not be adequate to run the most recent iOS software. Further, he says that rather than recalling products or offering replacement batteries, the firm instead pushed users to download the software updates. The models covered by the claim include the iPhone 6 all the way to the iPhone X models.
Source: BBC
A strange glitch caused Sonos to ship customers more items than what they ordered while charging them for unwanted shipments. It’s one thing to order one item and receive five extra but one customers reported that 30 different shipments showed up at his apartment building, carrying about $15,000 worth of products. According to an article from The Verge, the flood of shipments turned his apartment into a mini Sonos warehouse and racked up about $6000 in fees. With no room left in his unit to store the boxes, the customer had to leave them in his apartment’s lobby, causing friction with his building manager. Sonos has promised to provide free shipping labels and issue refunds independent of the items’ return.
Source: The Verge
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