big-brother

A judge in May ordered Apple to show all of its location tracking documents after it was discovered that the firm was keeping a log of user location data without express permission. Now Apple is facing the music yet again in the case, because the judge isn't sure that Apple has supplied all of the data that it has on the matter, Bloomberg said Friday. Apple thinks it needs to withhold some of the information for the protection of its employees, however. The story gets a bit dark.

"Luckily for the plaintiffs, Apple has provided more than enough evidence itself to suggest to the court that it has not fully complied with the court's order," the presiding judge said in documents discovered by Bloomberg. "In light of Apple's performance in this case, the court cannot rely on its representations that this time it really has or will produce all responsive documents."

The documents in question? Emails between Apple and other top executives within the company that were related to the lawsuit. Apparently there are more than 8,000 such emails, and Apple's lawyer admitted that not providing them to the court was a "mistake." The story gets even juicier, though.

Apparently part of the case involves Apple showing the court how its app review process works. But Apple is worried that giving that information away will reveal the identity of Apple employees who work on reviewing applications for approval into its iTunes App Store. One Apple employee said that another employee had received death threats from a developer whose application was denied.

Scary and touchy stuff, but we hope Apple provides the court with enough information so that it can decide whether or not our privacy was indeed invaded in an illegal way.