The California District Court on Monday rejected Apple’s request to abandon a class action lawsuit claiming iPhone makers are violating competition laws by forcing devices to back up important files and device settings from iCloud, a cloud storage service.
The complaint also accused Apple of not allowing third-party cloud services to access certain files and preventing them from providing “full-service” storage that competes with iCloud.
US District Judge Eumi Lee previously dismissed the case, but said the plaintiffs had not fully stated the claim. The plaintiffs then filed their second amended complaint earlier this year, with the judge finding that the new argument was sufficient to deny the demand to dismiss Apple’s case.
The plaintiffs argue that Apple holds a monopoly in the iPhone’s cloud-based storage market in terms of both revenue and user count.
For context, Apple allows users of devices such as photos, videos, and other documents to be backed up from the device to cloud storage services of their choice, but users cannot back up or restore the device’s core data to these services.
In its denial motion, Apple defended its decision to restrict access to core data, including app data and device settings, citing security reasons.
“That design decision has always been featured and has always been featured based on security and privacy considerations given the sensitivity of the data needed to restore an Apple device,” the company wrote.
Apple did not immediately return a request for comment.