If you participated in Apple’s Family Sharing feature with at least one other person and purchased a subscription to an app through the App Store between 2015 and 2019, you may be eligible for a settlement of up to $50 from the company. According to MacRumors, Apple is set to pay $25 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit alleging that the tech giant misled customers regarding the Family Sharing feature.
While the feature enables up to six family members to share app subscriptions, individual developers have the option to prohibit sharing a single subscription. The lawsuit, filed in 2019, accuses Apple of lacking transparency and misleading customers by giving the impression that they could share a subscription to every app in the App Store. The lawsuit claims that the “vast majority of subscription-based apps” did support Family Sharing.
The complaint further claims that Apple placed advertisements on the landing pages of certain subscription-based apps that did not support Family Sharing. This practice allegedly misled “millions of customers” into downloading subscription-based apps, falsely believing they could access them through their Family Sharing subscription. Examples cited include YouTube Red and a puzzle game named Brainwell, both of which reportedly did not allow sharing of their subscriptions with family members.
Reportedly, Apple has denied any wrongdoing and has opted to settle the case to avoid potential costs associated with a jury trial. The company has not provided a comment in response to a request from Engadget.
