The suit will be filed in the middle of August and alleges that Apple Korea violated domestic laws on privacy. According to the Korea Herald, 3 million people own iPhones in South Korea, and about 1 percent of them have contributed to the filing of the suit. The plaintiffs are claiming that Apple has to pay damages for inflicting emotional distress on them through the iPhone tracking.
The class action suit was initially created by Kim Hyeong-seok, a lawyer working for Mirae Law who had recently settled his own location-tracking lawsuit with Apple for 1 million won ($954 USD). After winning his lawsuit, Kim created a website called SueApple.co.kr for people to sign up and become part of the class action suit. Mirae Law will get $1 million won for each person in the suit, totaling about 27 billion won ($25.5 million USD). Apple can potentially lose a lot of money here, but the law firm may send some of its lawyers to Cupertino to work out some sort of settlement.
If Korea is able to successfully get $25.5 million from Apple, people in the U.S. and other countries may begin to file class action suits against the company as well. Apple may not have more cash in the bank than the U.S. Treasury for very much longer with all the damages it’ll have to pay concerning the location-tracking iPhones. And that’s not even taking into account whether Apple comes out on top over Samsung in the intellectual property lawsuit currently being battled. Apple’s lawyers definitely have a lot on their plates right now.
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