Apple hit with another suit alleging privacy violations

Apple has been hit with another lawsuit accusing it of privacy violations for the way it shares information collected from iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users with advertisers.

The suit was filed Jan 27 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of an Apple user in California and seeks class-action status. It charges Apple with sharing information about users' browsing history, application use and other personal details without their consent. "Apple's privacy policy is opaque and confusing but one thing is clear: it does not inform mobile device users that by providing application developers with their UDID, Apple enables them to put a name to highly personal and in many cases embarrassing information derived from app downloading activity and usage, and Internet browsing history, that would otherwise be anonymous," the suit reads. Apple gives each of its mobile devices a Unique Device Identifier, or UDID. Application developers have access to that number, which offers information about a user's browsing history every time the user clicks on an ad or an application, according to the suit. Developers sometimes sell the data to tracking companies, the suit alleges.