Carrier IQ, Apple, Samsung, HTC, And More Hit With Class-Action Lawsuit

The Carrier IQ scandal continues to spiral and now a new class-action lawsuit has been lodged against the company. The lawsuit, filed by three local law firms led by Sianni & Straite in the Federal Court in Wilmington, Delaware, also lists several other defendants, targeting handset manufacturers Apple, Samsung, HTC, and Motorola as well as US carriers AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile.

The complaint accused the companies of violating the Federal Wiretap Act, the Stored Electronic Communications Act, and the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The filing asserted that the companies committed an "unprecedented breach in the digital privacy rights of 150 million cell phone users" and that the defendants, namely Apple, Samsung, HTC, and Motorola, pre-installed the Carrier IQ software on its cell phones for AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile.

The controversy began last week when Trevor Eckhart discovered the Carrier IQ software to be running in the background on his HTC device. He alerted other users and noted that the software appeared to be logging every single user action on the device, including keystrokes and text messages.

Following the revelation, several manufacturers along with network operators have had to issue statements regarding the use of Carrier IQ. Apple, for one, has admitted to using Carrier IQ on its iOS devices, but assured that most of its iOS 5 devices no longer use the software and that future updates would completely remove it.

[via AppleInsider]