Apple Accused Of Deleting Rival’s Music From iPods, Faces Class-Action Lawsuit

The tech giant is being accused of committing monopoly-like practice with regards to the iPod. The company is facing allegations that it broke anti-trust laws and stifled competition in the music players and downloads businesses with its iPod and iTunes practices. Apparently, the lawyers that represent consumers claimed that Apple has deleted music downloads from rival companies. The practice of removing music downloads from competitors happened between 2007 and 2009.

It appears that Apple Inc. tweaked the iPod system in such a way that the device displayed an error when a user tried to sync music from a rival service. Following the error message on the display, Apple instructed unsuspecting users to immediately restore settings that will eventually result to the removal of the unwanted music download.

The lawyers claimed that an internal campaign transpired in order to keep the iPods free of music that were not bought from the iTunes store. According to BBC, the lawyers also added that the updates made to iTunes and iPod software were intended to block music from other online shops. Apple thrived by operating a closed system, which beat rivals in the market.

In its defense, Apple Inc. explained that it was only applying security measures with the iPod, and it absolutely had no malicious motive behind the alleged actions. The company's director of security Augustin Farrugia claimed that they did not intend to provide too much information to its users. He also said that they didn't want information overload which might cause confusion to users. Farrugia also added that the company has also been a victim of hacker attacks in the past, Wall Street Journal reports.

On the other hand, Apple is also concerned about hacking of their music store and their actions that have been cited as stifling competition was with the intention of protecting iTunes. The giant company also claimed that the update that ended up in deleting the music which was downloaded from rival platforms was for the greater interest of the users mainly because it protected their devices from being hacked.

Apple is expected to give more testimonies and evidences to justify actions regarding iPod. Marketing heads of the company are expected to testify and portions of a 2011 Steve Jobs video are expected to be played in court.