We heard last month that Apple would have to go ahead and face a class-action lawsuit because of last year's location-tracking scandal, but US District Judge Lucy Koh just narrowed the scope of the case a bit. While consumers who own an iPod touch, iPad, or iPhone can pursue claims that Apple secretly tracked their activity to share the data with advertisers and analytics firms, the judge dismissed a number of other claims. Most notably, Apple won't have to defend itself against accusations of violating customer privacy rights; the judge also threw out federal claims surrounding computer fraud, wiretapping, and records disclosure.

Judge Koh also dismissed a number of other defendants from the suit, including Google, AdMarval, Admob, Flurry, and Medialets; these defendants were included as potential beneficiaries of the data that Apple is accused of collecting and leaking. Apple continues to claim no wrongdoing, and says that its user agreements shield it from liability, but Judge Koh said that there was "some ambiguity" as to whether the company was allowed to collect the information it did. This case has been a long time coming — it's been well over a year since Apple's actions were first uncovered.