People who pay Apple extra for a supposedly anonymous browsing layer are taking the company to court, arguing the feature exposed the exact data it was marketed to hide.
Clarkson Law Firm filed the proposed class action, accusing Apple of fraud, false advertising and misrepresentation over iCloud Private Relay. The lawsuit centers on a flaw security researchers disclosed last week: websites that support passkeys can recover a subscriber’s real IP address even with Private Relay switched on.
The leak happens because passkey authentication makes a device reach out beyond the browser itself, and that request sidesteps the relay entirely. Researchers found even a site that merely pretends to support passkeys can trigger the exposure.
Clarkson has collected from Apple before. Its earlier case over personalized Siri features that arrived late closed with a $250M settlement, approved by a judge last month.
The new filing argues the subscriptions were sold while Apple knew or should have known the advertised protections were false, a gap its partner called a betrayal of consumer trust. The proposed class covers iCloud+ subscribers who paid for the feature, and Apple has not commented. The case lands as the company also fights UK government demands for iCloud encryption access, adding a second active front in the battle over how much user data Apple actually shields.
