iPhone lawsuit wins class action status

A lawsuit against Apple and AT&T over their exclusivity contract has been granted class action status, meaning it now includes anyone in the United States who bought an iPhone between June 29, 2007, and present day and signed up for AT&T service.

The heart of the class action suit (PDF of court filing PDF), which was originally filed in October 2007, is whether consumers who entered the two-year contract with AT&T did so knowing that they were actually entering a de-facto five-year contract because that's what the AT&T-Apple exclusivity agreement has been reported to be.

Apple has never publicly stated how long its exclusivity contract with AT&T is, though a five year time period--first reported by USA Today back in 2007--was recently confirmed through court documents related to this case.

Read more of "Lawsuit against Apple, AT&T exclusivity wins 'class action' status" at ZDNet.com.