美国国家公共电台 NPR Lawsuits Mount As Apple Manages Fallout From Revelation Of Slowed iPhones

 

LAUREN FRAYER, HOST:

Apple had a message for its customers this past week - we apologize. People have been angry ever since the company confirmed its software update slowed down older iPhone's with aging batteries. Apple says it did that to prevent those iPhones from shutting down unexpectedly. This apology might help on the public relations front, but what about the legal one? Apple's still facing lawsuits² from iPhone owners in California, in New York and Illinois. To help sort through this, we're joined by Rory Van Loo. He's an associate professor of law at Boston University with a focus on tech and regulation. Welcome.

RORY VAN LOO: Thank you.

FRAYER: So lawsuits have been filed in all of these different states. Very broadly, what claims are these lawsuits making against Apple?

VAN LOO: There's contract law claims, which essentially³ amount to, look, we had an agreement that you, Apple, would do certain things, like take good care of my phone and not slow it down, be transparent⁴ in what you're telling me you're doing, and you breached⁵ that. There's a second category of claims that amount to essentially you harmed something I own. Whether or not we had an agreement, you went and you slowed down something that I bought from you in the past, and you shouldn't have done that. And then there's a third category of claims that are consumer protection violations⁶. So you did something unfair or deceptive⁷. You changed my phone in a harmful way, didn't tell me you were doing that, and that caused me to go and spend a lot of money on a new phone when, if you'd just been transparent with me about what you had been doing, I could have gone and bought a cheaper battery.

FRAYER: I gather it varies by state, but what do these plaintiffs need to prove for some of these claims?

VAN LOO: The plaintiffs are going to need to prove for their fraud claims in some jurisdictions⁸ that Apple intended to promote new phone sales by slowing down old phones.

FRAYER: That this was some kind of plot, a sales tactic⁹.

VAN LOO: Yes. For all claims, it's going to need to prove some kind of harm. They're going to need to show that Apple intentionally¹⁰ withheld¹¹ information about slowing down the phone. They're going to need to show that consumers would have made a different decision not to buy a new phone and instead to purchase a lower priced battery in order to establish harm.

FRAYER: It's still very early in the legal process, but what are the chances that these lawsuits will win against the tech giant Apple?

VAN LOO: All of the lawsuits face an uphill battle. That being said, if I were Apple, I would be nervous right now. For one, Apple has lost a number of cases across the country on some similar arguments in recent years. Just last month, Apple suffered a setback¹² on an older lawsuit¹, and in that older case, iPhone 4 users had argued that an Apple software update made their phones buggy and unusable even though Apple had said that the software upgrade would enhance performance. And Apple tried to get that case thrown out before it ever got off the ground and, in its initial response, used one of the arguments that it's likely to make in the current cases, which is, look, we told you in the fine print for the software update that things might go wrong, so we never made any promises.

FRAYER: So is the moral of the story here we better read that fine print? I mean, every time you have an update and you click OK, OK, I mean, have we agreed to things that we didn't realize we were agreeing to?

VAN LOO: Yes and no. I mean, Apple is not going to be protected completely by what it puts in the fine print. And the reason is that you have to be very specific about what you say in the fine print. And as far as I'm aware, it didn't anywhere say we may slow down your phones with our updates.

FRAYER: But they did say that now in the apology, that they didn't intentionally shorten the life of a product.

VAN LOO: Apple's apology this past week is not going to protect them from what they did last month and last year. And so that's the problem that they face right now. I think the apology is going to make some consumers happier, and it's going to help their image in the court of public opinion, if you will. And that - that's not irrelevant¹³, actually, to lawsuits because judges and juries are human, and so to the extent that Apple is going to appear to be exercising good faith here because of their apology, that's good for Apple, but it doesn't free them of the potential legal liability.

FRAYER: Rory Van Loo is an associate professor of law at Boston University. Thank you.

VAN LOO: Thank you.

1 lawsuit   

n.诉讼，控诉

参考例句：

• They threatened him with a lawsuit.他们以诉讼威逼他。
• He was perpetually involving himself in this long lawsuit.他使自己无休止地卷入这场长时间的诉讼。

2 lawsuits   

n.诉讼( lawsuit的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Lawsuits involving property rights and farming and grazing rights increased markedly. 涉及财产权，耕作与放牧权的诉讼案件显著地增加。 来自辞典例句
• I've lost and won more lawsuits than any man in England. 全英国的人算我官司打得最多，赢的也多，输的也多。 来自辞典例句

3 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

4 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

5 breached   

攻破( breach的现在分词 )； 破坏，违反

参考例句：

• These commitments have already been breached. 这些承诺已遭背弃。
• Our tanks have breached the enemy defences. 我方坦克车突破了敌人的防线。

6 violations   

违反( violation的名词复数 )； 冒犯； 违反（行为、事例）； 强奸

参考例句：

• This is one of the commonest traffic violations. 这是常见的违反交通规则之例。
• These violations of the code must cease forthwith. 这些违犯法规的行为必须立即停止。

7 deceptive   

adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的

参考例句：

• His appearance was deceptive.他的外表带有欺骗性。
• The storyline is deceptively simple.故事情节看似简单，其实不然。

8 jurisdictions   

司法权( jurisdiction的名词复数 )； 裁判权； 管辖区域； 管辖范围

参考例句：

• Butler entreated him to remember the act abolishing the heritable jurisdictions. 巴特勒提醒他注意废除世袭审判权的国会法令。
• James I personally adjudicated between the two jurisdictions. 詹姆士一世亲自裁定双方纠纷。

9 tactic   

n.战略，策略；adj.战术的，有策略的

参考例句：

• Reducing prices is a common sales tactic.降价是常用的销售策略。
• She had often used the tactic of threatening to resign.她惯用以辞职相威胁的手法。

10 intentionally   

ad.故意地，有意地

参考例句：

• I didn't say it intentionally. 我是无心说的。
• The local authority ruled that he had made himself intentionally homeless and was therefore not entitled to be rehoused. 当地政府裁定他是有意居无定所，因此没有资格再获得提供住房。

11 withheld   

withhold过去式及过去分词

参考例句：

• I withheld payment until they had fulfilled the contract. 他们履行合同后，我才付款。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• There was no school play because the principal withheld his consent. 由于校长没同意，学校里没有举行比赛。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 setback   

n.退步，挫折，挫败

参考例句：

• Since that time there has never been any setback in his career.从那时起他在事业上一直没有遇到周折。
• She views every minor setback as a disaster.她把每个较小的挫折都看成重大灾难。

13 irrelevant   

adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的

参考例句：

• That is completely irrelevant to the subject under discussion.这跟讨论的主题完全不相关。
• A question about arithmetic is irrelevant in a music lesson.在音乐课上，一个数学的问题是风马牛不相及的。