Samsung and Oppo have drawn the attention of the Shanghai Consumer Council as the body has launched legal action against the smartphone manufacturers over the use of bloatware in the their devices. The lawsuit was supposedly motivated by a large number of complaints by consumers against the use of pre-installed software.
Chinese consumers were reportedly concerned at the amount of storage space the apps take up, as well as the data usage those apps use up behind the scenes. The council claimed that a study found that a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 could contain 44 pre-installed apps that could not be removed or were hard to disable. An Oppo phone was found to be much worse with 71 pre-installed apps; including several games. It should be noted that Samsung has begun moving away from this practice with the Galaxy S6, but older models will likely still suffer from massive amounts of bloatware.
The main point of contention is that these apps were installed without the knowledge of the users, which prevented them from making an informed decision. “The litigation is our latest attempt to safeguard consumers’ rights after other methods failed,” Tao Ailian, secretary general of the council, told the Shanghai Daily.
The lawsuit seeks to force manufacturers to list any pre-installed apps on the packaging of their smartphones, as well as make it easier to remove those apps. Of course, this could prove to be a challenge since the current trend is minimalist boxes with a few words as possible.
Samsung and Oppo now have 15 days to enter a defence against the lawsuit, after which the court will announce trial dates.
[Source: Shanghai Daily]
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