Samsung rebuffs Italy's 'planned obsolescence' claims
Samsung rebuffs Italy's 'planned obsolescence' claims
SAMSUNG HAS REBUFFED claims from Italy's antitrust watchdog that it, like Apple, is throttling the performance of older smartphones.
Italy's antitrust watchdog, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM), last week announced plans to open an investigation into Apple and Samsung over allegations that both firms use software updates to slow down devices in a bid to push people to buy new smartphones.
The watchdog is accusing Apple and Samsung of orchestrating "a general commercial policy taking advantage of the lack of certain components to curb the performance times of their products and induce consumers to buy new versions."
Doing so infringes on several articles of Italy's consumer codes, according to AGCM, and Apple and Samsung could be fined millions if found guilty.
While it's no surprise that AGCM is casting its critical eye over Apple, this is the first time Samsung has been formally accused of throttling the performance of its devices.
Samsung has since denied the allegations, saying in a statement to Nikkei that it "does not provide the software updates to reduce the product performance over the life cycle of the device.
"We will fully cooperate with Italian Authority for Market and Competition's investigation in Italy to clarify the facts," the Samsung spokesperson added.
Apple has yet to respond to news of the investigation, but late last year confirmed that it throttles the performance of older iPhone models with degraded batteries, a move which has already lead to questioning from Chinese, French and US authorities.
A South Korean consumer last week also filed a criminal complaint against Apple CEO Tim Cook over iPhone slowdowns, Reuters reports, accusing the firm of "destruction of property and fraud."
Italy's investigation also comes just days after Cook announced that Apple will offer users the ability to disable performance throttling with a future iOS update. µ
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