Apple was not able to narrow the scope of a UK lawsuit accusing it of locking 40 million UK consumers into iCloud, to the detriment of third-party cloud storage providers. British consumer group Which? first filed the lawsuit in late 2024, and is asking for £3 billion for UK Apple customers.
Apple wanted to exclude non-paying iCloud users from the lawsuit, but the tribunal denied Apple's request in a 2 to 1 majority. The lawsuit will go to trial, and will cover both paying and non-paying iCloud customers.
Apple users get 5GB of free storage for photos, messages, and other content on the iPhone, but are encouraged to subscribe to Apple's higher-tier iCloud storage options when the 5GB limit is exceeded. Which? claims that Apple favors its own cloud storage option, and makes it difficult for customers to use alternative cloud storage providers.
Which? sued Apple on behalf of all Apple iCloud users in the UK, regardless of whether they pay for an iCloud subscription plan. Normally, a customer that has not lost anything would not be eligible for a damages payment, but Which? has taken a unique approach.
The tribunal said the lawsuit raises a "novel" legal question, because it is not aware of another case where damages have been requested for "forgone consumer surplus." Forgone Consumer Surplus (FCS) is a legal theory that in this case argues people who were priced out of an iCloud subscription because of Apple's alleged market abuse have suffered a tangible loss because they did not have the opportunity to buy a service they wanted at a fair price in a competitive market.
The 200GB iCloud tier that costs £2.99 might have only cost £1.99 at a "fair" price, for example. Which? argues that a customer who would have theoretically paid £1.99 for the service but was not able to do so because the actual £2.99 price was unaffordable suffered a £1 loss, even though the customer paid nothing. Lawsuits for damages are usually more straightforward, covering paying customers who experienced clear harm from inflated pricing.
While two members of the tribunal sided with Which?, the other took Apple's side. The justice who argued against FCS warned that the case could lead to a flood of cases with secondary claims from non-purchasers based on hypothetical willingness-to-pay calculations.
Apple owes no damages at this point, and is now facing a trial to determine whether it abused its position and gave iCloud preferential treatment on iOS.
All UK consumers who are eligible are automatically included in the claim unless they opt out. Eligible consumers include those who obtained iCloud services from November 8, 2018, to the present. Which? estimates that Apple could owe UK customers an average payout of £70.
Which? wants Apple to settle the claim without litigation by offering consumers their money back and opening up iOS to let users choose a cloud provider.
