A consumer protection group in China called the Shanghai Consumer Council has filed a lawsuit against Samsung and Oppo over the pre-installed applications (bloatware) on their smartphones. The council studied 20 smartphones and came to the conclusion that many pre-installed apps were un-removable and eat into customers’ data plans. It made special note of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 which had 44 apps installed (stock KitKat with the full Google Play suite ships with 31 apps) and the Oppo Find 7a, which had a whopping 71 apps.
Shanghai Consumer Council says that it was motivated to launch legal proceedings against the companies after a high number of complaints from users. The council states that people are unhappy that they’ve got less storage space than expected, and that these apps slurp down excessive quantities of data.
According to Tao Ailian, secretary general of the Council, buyers were not made aware of the preloaded applications that would come standard with their phone. And since there are no instructions on how to remove these apps, consumers often face large data usage bills as a result of the unwanted bloatware. With useless applications taking up space on phones, the consumer rights agency says many users have complained that their devices were woefully misrepresented before purchase.[blockquote cite=”Tao Ailian, Shanghai Consumer Council” type=”left”]“The litigation is our latest attempt to safeguard consumers’ rights after other methods failed. We hope it will force other companies in the sector to end the unreasonable, but common, practice of pre-installing apps without telling consumers. This is something that is very much necessary for the healthy development of the whole industry.”[/blockquote]
Samsung and Oppo now has 15 days to respond and provide a defense. After that, Shanghainese courts will set a hearing date. The former released a statement saying, “We have not yet received the formal complaint filed by the Shanghai Consumer Council.
“We will thoroughly review the court document and determine an appropriate response,” it added.
