UPDATED 13:25 EDT / APRIL 29 2011

Lawsuit Lunch: Google, Twitter Join Apple in Court

Earlier this week, Apple got sued by two of its customers, Vikram Ajjampur and William Devito, for allegedly tracking the location of their devices without their content. Now, Google’s Android and Twitter have joined that club with two fresh lawsuits filed over alleged privacy.

iOS competitor Android is facing a very similar lawsuit to the one filed against Apple. Two HTC Inspire 4G phone holders have filed a lawsuit against the mobile OS maker over claims their devices secretly recorded and stored location data. The plaintiffs seek a class-action lawsuit, in addition to at least $50 million in damages and a court order requiring Google to stop device-tracking.

“Google and Apple Inc. are facing scrutiny from consumers and lawmakers over the collection of data on smart phones. Both companies have agreed to testify at a May 10 Senate hearing about consumer privacy on mobile devices.”

The two companies’ individual cases are erringly similar to each others, yet an even more peculiar one was just filed against Twitter. California residents, Drew Moss and Sahar Maleksaeedi are suing the social network over a confirmatory SMS sent to their cellphone, even though, according to the plaintiffs, they used an SMS command meant to turn off all notifications.

Moss and Maleksaeedi claim that Twitter’s alleged actions represent a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) and an invasion of their privacy, and request up to $1,500 in damages for each call in alleged violation of this act. Multiplied by the proposed class number of the “tens of thousands,” the suit may come exceed the $5 million threshold for federal court jurisdiction.

Going back to Google, the company is facing quite a bit of lawsuits. We’ve learned yesterday that a judge has greatly sided with Oracle in a suit against Google the company claiming that Android has 7 patent infringements on Java.


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