Italian antitrust outfit says iCloud's terms and conditions may be illegal

What you need to know

• iCloud's terms and conditions might be illegal according to an Italian antitrust regulator.
• The regulator has a number of issues with the document including Apple's ability to change it at any time.

It isn't clear where the story goes from here, though.

Apple's iCloud terms and conditions have been picked up as potentially being illegal by an Italian antitrust regulator, with a number of points raised relating to the content of the document.

In its most basic terms, the issue appears to be that the Italian regulator believes the terms are too favorable to Apple, giving it the power to make changes at any time, although that might not be specific to Apple.

Waiting (or hoping) for @setteBIT to start again, I’ll be the spokesman of uncomfortable news… Apple’s iCloud T&C are not in the favor of Italian antitrust, which finds them unfair and way too favorable for Apple.https://t.co/1al8izMmZh pic.twitter.com/3T7Fk5vzr2

— Carlo V Bevilacqua A (@carlo_vba) September 27, 2021

Another example of the issues raised by the Italians relates to iCloud storage and how secure it actually is. The regulator believes Apple's users would expect their data to be safe in iCloud, but despite Apple marketing it as a secure storage option for data, it doesn't actually explain how that is managed. The terms and conditions also paint a significantly different picture, pointing out that data can be deleted by the company when it deems it no longer needed.

Today's report comes after an investigation was carried out following complaints related to iCloud, with the Autorità Garante Della Concorrenza E Del Mercato publishing its findings as part of a larger document that also included the likes of Amazon. It isn't clear where the story will go from here, either. No text steps appear to have been outlined, for example.

There is no shortage of cloud storage options if you'd rather not use iCloud, of course. Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box are just some of the best cloud storage apps that are available in the App Store today.