Apple has now admitted that there is no Canadian legal reason to stop Canadians from using iTunes gift cards for purchases of apps. It is simply company policy.
Apple Admits No Legal Reason To Block App Purchases With Gift Cards
4 Comments
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 231: Sara Bannerman on How Canadian Political Parties Maximize Voter Data Collection and Minimize Privacy Safeguards 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 230: Aengus Bridgman on the 2025 Federal Election, Social Media Platforms, and Misinformation 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 229: My Digital Access Day Keynote – Assessing the Canadian Digital Policy Record 
Queen’s University Trustees Reject Divestment Efforts Emphasizing the Importance of Institutional Neutrality 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 228: Kumanan Wilson on Why Canadian Health Data Requires Stronger Privacy Protection in the Trump Era
Finally! If only I didn’t feel so insulted that Apple would think “Those kooky Canadians have tons of strange laws. They’ll never know the difference”. BIG thanks to Jim Whitelaw for pursuing this matter. I’ve been refusing to purchase apps with a credit card when I have usable iTunes credit.
The only thing is, will Apple change their tune? I never understood why this rule was in place, its been PREVENTING sales. App developers should be upset.
What ever happened with this
The Quebec Consumers Union picked this one up in Feb. Apple sells iTunes Gift Cards saying you can download music, apps “and lots more”, then people found out they couldn’t purchase music and apps “and lots more” with these gift cards after buying them.
Apple refused to reimburse the people.
Consumer union demanded that apple remove the restrictions or reimburse the people.
So to sum up, apple was/is selling iTune cards people could never use, yet they advertise you can buy all sorts of stuff with it, but you actually can’t!
Consumers Union link:
http://www.consommateur.qc.ca/union-des-consommateurs/?p=305
I don’t know what happened with that and their involvement though… I didn’t notice anything else come of this.
Would be fun to see this one progress.
Take these guys to Court
Seriously, they falsely advertised something for years, and now admit to lying about it! I don’t see any reason why Canada has to be shut out of the apps greed. Money is money, you would think they would jump at our market. I can only wonder if it has something to do with Canadian content rules once again limiting Canadians in choice while the gov’t screws us over.
This policy has apparently now changed; I just purchased some apps in the Canadian iTunes store using an existing iTunes gift card balance; no credit card was requested. I realized something was different when a “terms and conditions have changed” window popped up while logging in. An unexpected but pleasant surprise.