Apple is exempt from the “Toast Plus” class action lawsuit since a bogus cryptocurrency wallet app was offered in the Apple App Store, according to a federal judge in California. After downloading the bogus application and losing some money, a person sued the tech giant.
The iPhone maker is not responsible for a lawsuit over a bogus crypto wallet app that was available for download from the company’s app store, according to Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Crypto investor and claimant Hadona Diep charged Apple with hosting a fake mobile application that imitates Toast Plus, a reliable XRP wallet app. The name and branding of the bogus app were the same as those of the real one. In September of last year, she filed a class action complaint in federal court in Maryland against the tech giant; in December, the case was moved to the Northern District of California.
According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff downloaded the phoney application from the Apple App Store in January 2018 and used it to start a transfer of about 474 XRP tokens from the cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex to a Rippex wallet.
However, the complainant was still able to access her funds from other wallets after Rippex went down in February 2018. In March 2021, the complainant “connected her private XRP key, or a seed phrase, into Toast Plus.” But in August 2021, she noticed that her Toast Plus account had been cancelled in March 2021 and that the XRP coins she had placed were vanished.
Apple’s hosting of the fake cryptocurrency wallet app, according to Diep, caused damages of more than $5,000. Ryumei Nagao, another plaintiff with her, alleges that he lost $500,000.
Apple and Judge Hamilton both agreed that the tech corporation is not responsible for the bogus app. According to Hamilton’s opinion on September 2, Apple is exempt from liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act because it is regarded as a publisher of the content offered by another content provider rather than a creator.
The judge also agreed with Apple that Diep failed to adequately allege claims under the Consumer Privacy Acts of both Maryland and California because she lacked specifics regarding the occasion, setting, and nature of the claimed fraudulent claims.
Additionally, the court’s decision states that Diep’s claims must be rejected because, in accordance with Apple’s terms and conditions, the firm is not responsible for losses resulting from or connected with the use of third-party apps.