Apple Family Sharing Users Could Net $30 as Part of $25 Million Settlement

Apple may owe you up to $30 as part of a $25 million class action settlement stemming from a June 2019 lawsuit related to the company’s Family Sharing feature.

The feature lets you and up to five other members of your clan share access to an Apple Card credit card, Apple Music, Apple News+ and Apple TV+. This group can also share App Store purchases, Apple Books and iTunes as well as a family photo album and iCloud storage.

However, the lawsuit alleged that Apple placed advertisements on other apps’ landing pages that misrepresented users’ ability to share those app subscriptions within their Family Sharing group. Though Apple agreed to settle, the company denies any guilt or wrongdoing.

The total settlement amount pales next to the $725 million that Facebook parent Meta agreed to settle a five-year-old privacy lawsuit and is more in line with the $23 million that Google will part with in its own consolidated class action privacy lawsuits. The Google settlement involves cases that go back more than a decade.

As with those other settlements, don’t expect to get rich. The $30 that eligible plaintiffs might receive would cover a little more than the next movie you buy in the iTunes Store.

The actual payout will depend on the number of people who file for compensation. The money will be divvied up after the law firm that brought the case receives as much as $10.3 million, the settlement administrator is paid as much as $2 million and two plaintiffs receive up to $15,000 each. 

Still, the settlement is money you don’t have now, says class action attorney Danny Karon of Cleveland. The owner of the Your Lovable Lawyer consumer website was talking about the Facebook case, but the philosophy applies here too.

What is a class action lawsuit?

The legal procedure allows one or a small number of plaintiffs to pursue a case on behalf of a larger group or class of people.

Apple is no stranger to class actions. The company previously agreed to pony up from $310 million to $500 million to settle a 2020 class action suit around claims that it intentionally slowed down or “throttled,” via software, the performance of certain iPhone models to avoid unexpected shutdowns.

Apple posted a public mea culpa letter in 2017 apologizing to smartphone users affected in the throttling — owners of iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus, SE, 7 and 7 Plus handsets that were running certain versions of the iOS mobile operating system software. The episode was referred to as Batterygate.

Am I eligible for this latest Apple settlement?

You are if you purchased a subscription to an app through the Apple App Store, excluding subscriptions to Apple’s own apps, from June 21, 2015, to Jan. 30, 2019, while enrolled in a Family Sharing group that had at least one other member at the time of the purchase. You had to be a U.S. resident when the purchase was made.

Certain people are excluded, including Apple employees, all judicial officers assigned to the case and their staff and immediate families.

If you are eligible, you should receive an email notice indicating that Apple determined you are a so-called class member, along with a class identification number and a personal identification number. You then can request a check through the mail or electronic transfer of money online.