Shangai commission files case against Samsung, Oppo

Have you ever bought a new smartphone, excitedly unboxed it, then immediately got annoyed when you saw that the manufacturer pre-installed so many apps that you won’t use anyway? And some of them can’t even be uninstalled? Well, finally, a court has accepted that such an occurrence deserves legal action against the OEMs. That is, if you live in Shanghai, China. A commission has filed a case against Samsung and Oppo for pre-installing apps without informing consumers of their existence on their new devices.

The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court has accepted separate cases that have been filed by the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission against Tianjjin Samsung Telecommunications Technology Co Ltd, and Guangdong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Co Ltd. This case is in behalf of numerous complaints received from the public and investigated by the commission, regarding those pre-installed apps that come with their new smartphones. In this case, two of the “offending” devices are the SM-N9008S with its 44 pre-installed apps, and the Oppo X9007, which had a whopping 71 apps installed.

The commission studied 20 smartphones and found that most of these models already have apps that consumers normally wouldn’t use anyway. And even more annoying is that some of these apps can’t be uninstalled, eating up precious memory and space on the device. The commission says that this infringes on the people’s right to know since they have not been informed beforehand. They are hoping that this case will be precedent for OEMs to stop this practice that may be detrimental to the growth of the industry.

Both Samsung and Oppo have 15 days since the case was officially accepted by the Shanghai court to respond and enter a defense. Once they have responded, the court will then announce the trial dates. Let’s see if this case, even though it’s all the way in China, will have an impact on cases and issues like this on this part of the world.

VIA: Shanghai Daily