With just 5GB of free storage available with each iCloud account, most of us need to pay for a higher tier so we can back up our devices, photos, and files. If you’re one of those people, you have a refund check headed your way.
Thanks to a new class-action settlement, Apple has agreed to a $14.8 million settlement “for breach of contract regarding the iCloud Service that Apple provides to its users.” The crux of the case is that Apple breached the iCloud Terms and Conditions by storing iCloud user data using third-party servers rather than its own.
The settlement includes any U.S. resident who paid for a subscription to iCloud at any time from September 16, 2015, to January 31, 2016. You don’t need to do anything to join the class. As long as the email you used to sign up for iCloud storage during that time is still active you should receive a notification that you are a class member.
Each person in the class will “receive a pro rata distribution of the Settlement based on the overall payments made by each Class Member for his or her iCloud subscription during the Class Period,” so it depends on how much you spent during the period. Apple’s monthly iCloud rates at the time were $0.99 (50GB), $3.99 (200GB), and $9.99 (1TB).
According to the terms of the settlement, Apple “maintains that it did nothing wrong and denies that it breached the iCloud Terms and Conditions with any user.” A Final Approval Hearing will be held on August 4.
For more information about the class-action settlement, you can visit the Williams v. Apple Inc. website.
Update 3/25: Clarified that the settlement only applies to U.S. residents.
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.