Israel has added its voice to the chorus of governments who have been looking into Apple’s handling of the iPhone slowdown issues revealed late last year, Reuters reports. Israel’s Consumer Protection and Fair Trade Authority revealed this week that it is investigating Apple “over a failure to disclose to consumers that its software could slow performance in some iPhones,” adding in a statement that it has already questioned Rony Friedman, the head of Apple’s operations in Israel. The Israeli agency holds the power to levy significant fines in civil proceedings, however a spokesman for the agency said it was too early to discuss that possibility. A spokesman for Apple in Israel has declined to comment.
In addition to a swelling number of sent Apple a list of questions about how it came to the decision to throttle performance on its devices without informing users, and the U.S. Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission later began an investigation to determine whether Apple broke securities laws by not disclosing that it was intentionally slowing down older iPhones. During the same time period, a prosecutor in France opened a similar investigation after a complaint by a consumer organization that alleged deception and “planned obsolescence” by Apple, and Apple was later called before a Canadian Parliamentary Committee in early March to explain its decisions. Similar investigations are ongoing in Brazil, Italy, and South Korea.
