Yesterday I told you that in Australia the Apple company has secretly doubled the warranty period offered for products sold in that country, this being the first time Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), take such action. Just one day after learning of these changes, which Apple still does not officially recognize, the European Commissioner for Justice, Viviane Reding, he accused again, the American company does not respect European legislation and does not correctly inform its customers about the guarantee they benefit from by purchasing a product.
In a speech Tuesday, the EU's Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding honed in on the Apple case as an example of weak and diverse enforcement of consumer rules within the EU.
"This case and the responses I received since I sent my letter have highlighted rather clearly just why the Commission cannot sit on the side-lines on enforcement issues," she said. "The approaches to enforcement in these types of cases turn out to be very diversified and inconsistent at a national level. In at least 21 EU Member States, Apple is not informing consumers correctly about the legal warranty rights they have. This is simply not good enough."
It seems that Apple has already been sued in Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal and Belgium by consumer protection groups, and this after Apple was fined over 1 million euros in Italy. The European Commissioner asks the authorities of each European state to monitor with much greater care the way in which the warranty is offered for Apple products and to impose the law where necessary and we can expect new fines for the Americans.
