Do Siri’s quirky answers boasting Apple products constitute sponsored advertising?
We know Siri has a tendency to provide surprising answers that can cause a bit of controversy in some cases. Many reported earlier this year that Siri responded with “Nokia Lumia 900” when asked what the best smartphone is (an answer based on data from the Web). Apple quickly appeared to tweak the responses with answers that promoted the iPhone, such as: “The one you’re holding.” Now, PocketNow reported law student Sean DeVries is suing Apple over the “sponsored responses”:
Instead of actually providing information based on web search results and user reviews, Apple’s Siri software will provide a “sponsored answer” instead that advertises Apple’s products… of our law-student Pocketnow readers decided to sue Apple about this on-device false advertising simply out of principle. Sean DeVries’ goal is to get Apple to at least change their website and end user agreement to include this information though an indicator of “sponsored responses” would be best during Siri’s answers. Sean’s court date is scheduled for October 9th.
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