Apple fined 10 million euros over “misleading” iPhone waterproofing claims

Italy’s anti-trust authority AGCM or Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato has fined Apple 10 million euros (roughly $12 million) for ‘misleading’ claims on water resistance capacity of its iPhones. The Italian Competition Authority in a release said that the premium smartphone maker advertised about iPhones being water resistant without clarifying the exact circumstances under which they were.

Criticising Apple for not clarifying its water resistance claims, the AGCM said the claims were true only under certain circumstances. Apple claims that its different iPhone models are water resistant up to 30 minutes at a depth of up to four meters (depending on the model).

The authority criticised Apple for not clarifying that the property is found only under specific conditions like during controlled and specific laboratory tests using pure and static water, and not under normal conditions in which its devices are used by consumers.

The ACGM said in the statement that Apple’s disclaimer tricked customers as it states that iPhones were not covered by warranty if the damage occured from any liquid. The regulator said that customers were not provided any information regarding this and were not provided warranty cover by Apple when their smartphones were damaged by water or even other liquids.

Apple has so far refused to comment on the development.

Earlier in 2018, Italy’s anti-trust authority had fined Apple and Samsung for alleged throttling of older devices. They were fined a total of 10 million euros combined for a pair of violations. The American multinational technology company was fined 5 million euros or USD 5.7 million when users started to face problems in various models of iPhone 6 after installing iOS 10. The fine was also imposed for not informing apple users information about their devices’ batteries.