Shane Cole reports:
Adding to Apple’s mountain of legal conflict, a lawsuit filed this week in New England claims that Apple collected retail customers’ zip codes in violation of state law and then profited from the sale of that information to third parties.
Plaintiffs Adam Christensen, Jeffrey Scolnick, and William Farrell claim that they were forced to provide their zip code when making credit card purchases at Apple retail stores in Massachusetts, a practice that the suit contends is illegal under the Massachusetts Unfair Trade Practices Act. That statute makes it unlawful to compel customers to provide personally identifiable information beyond that which is required by credit card issuers to verify the transaction.
The complaint goes on to allege that Apple not only collects this information, but then sells it to other companies for profit.
Read more on Apple Insider.