Does iPhone break European consumer protection law?

Posted by dennis on January 24th, 2008 at 05:54am Comments

Does iPhone break European consumer-protection law? It seems that’s up to individual countries to decide.

Apple avoided a major trouble in the European Union after European consumer protection commissioner Meglena Kuneva decided that national courts have to deal with Apple’s exclusive iPhone distribution contracts in Europe.

She was asked by Said El Khadraoui, a European Parliament member who is a Belgian socialist (interesting part is that the iPhone was not even announced for Belgium as of yet), whether Apple’s exclusive contracts with carriers break the European consumer-protection law.

Mr El Khadraoui stated “I’d like to urge the commission to start talks with Apple to signal the difficulty they may have with this. The commission could give a clear signal to Apple and tell them that this isn’t a good situation from a consumer-protection point of view,” although it seems his effort has failed.

Last year French courts decided that French Apple iPhone distributor Orange has to offer unlocked versions of the device to consumers, while German courts decided that German iPhone distributor T-Mobile can offer the iPhone exclusively.

Thanks: International Herald Tribune

 

Related posts:

1. T-Mobile wins German iPhone monopoly lawsuit
2. Orange: iPhone still coming to France in November 2007
3. Apple to unveil iPhone European distributors this coming Tuesday
4. iPhone doesn’t break Australian law
5. iPhone in 2007 in major European countries, in v2.0 in Canada?

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Filed Under: News+ iPhone Europe+ iPhone Lawsuits