“My phone is spying on me, I swear. The other day, I was talking about hairless terriers, and now all the ads showing up on my iPhone are for exotic dogs!” How many times have you had a thought or conversation like this? This is why legal proceedings are now wrapping up and giving us the Apple Siri Eavesdropping Settlement.
Plaintiffs in a lawsuit alleged that Apple was listening to them as they talked, and used their conversation for ad-targetting, without anyone’s knowledge or permission. Siri was dormant and not activated on their iPhones. But after chatting about Air Jordans and Olive Garden near their phones, those brands began appearing in ads on the plaintiffs’ devices.
Of course, as Apple agrees to this settlement, they admit to doing nothing wrong. They’re paying out $95M to move past all of this.
Your Piece of the Settlement
If you’ve owned an Apple iPhone, iPad, or other Siri-capable device in the last 10 years, you may join this settlement for your share of the payout. It looks like you could get up to $20 per Apple devices, up to $100 (limit of 5 devices).
The settlement website is at www.lopezvoiceassistantsettlement.com and when you visit, you may click the Submit Claim button to get started on things. You’ll need to then click the New Claim button, if you don’t have any existing Claim ID numbers.
The site will ask you for basic contact info, and then you’ll either have to supply your iDevice’s Serial and Model numbers, or some kind of proof-of-purchase. If you need to go searching for those numbers, grab your iDevice and start with Settings -> General, you’ll probably find them there.