Apple has now shut down Google’s ability to distribute its internal iOS apps, following a similar shutdown that was issued to Facebook earlier this week. A person familiar with the situation tells The Verge that early versions of Google Maps, Hangouts, Gmail, and other pre-release beta apps have stopped working today, alongside employee-only apps like a Gbus app for transportation and Google’s internal cafe app.
“We’re working with Apple to fix a temporary disruption to some of our corporate iOS apps, which we expect will be resolved soon,” says a Google spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. Apple has not yet commented on the situation.
There are two sides to this story. One the one hand, I’m glad Apple is taking measures and revoking some of these companies’ developer rights. These kinds of privacy-invading apps are a terrible idea, even if people get paid for them, and no platform should allow them. On the other hand, though, I would much rather have such tactics be wholly illegal on a national level, since leaving such decisions in the hands of easily corruptible corporrations – see Apple and China – is a recipe for disaster.
I do think the free market has gone too far and I believe in restricting companies from putting products on the market that people shouldn’t use. But the limits are very difficult:
Should you be allowed to participate in (paid) drug-experiments?
Should you be allowed to not wear seatbelts?
Should you be allowed to not vaccinate your children? Are you responsible for infecting others?
Should you be allowed to run insecure software in your home? In your company?
“Should you be allowed to shoot yourself in the foot?” Would doctors be required to treat you afterwards?
Should Apple have the option to make “employee-only apps like a Gbus app for transportation and Google’s internal cafe app.” stop working?
The privacy policy for Google’s Screenwise programme is still available, and makes for chilling reading: “it potentially will record everything you see on your screen and everything you tap, type, swipe, or otherwise input.”… “The TV Meter has a microphone that, when enabled, captures all nearby audio “… and so on. https://www.screenwisepanel.com/enroll/Privacy.aspx
Having said that, this was all done with user consent, and the policy is clear about the extent of the data collection. Even though I’m deeply privacy conscious — and believe it’s a human right — I see this as very different from the sort of passive and opaque data collection that Google and other companies are conducting elsewhere.
As a person who roots for the right to load any app you want (one of the reasons I chose Android is the ability to load any apk I want), I believe Apple shouldn’t have the right to tell iOS users what to run on devices they paid for. Period.
A) There’s a huge area between “very informed consent” and “completely uninformed consent”; and “consent” by itself (without further qualification) is meaningless (e.g. “consent” is the distribution model of a whole category of malware – trojans, etc).
B) We live in a word of delegation. Don’t want to learn how to rebuild your car’s engine? That’s fine, hire a specialist (mechanic). Don’t want to build your own house? That’s fine, hire a specialist (builder). Don’t want to do brain surgery on yourself? That’s fine, find a qualified surgeon. Don’t want to spend months reading through the fine print (licences, EULA) and checking that software complies with its terms and conditions and that the terms and conditions don’t change? That’s fine, use a walled garden and let someone else figure out which apps are/aren’t safe.
Apple are responsible for the contents of their walled garden, and have a duty of care that includes caring about the majority of people (who only ever provide “uninformed consent”, which is meaningless).
I think that people should be able to escape the garden (and should be able to install anything they like from wherever they like; and should accept responsibility for their actions and should be unable to blame or sue Apple with they get screwed because of their actions); but most people simply do not want this (they want to delegate the responsibility to someone else).
Those “most people” can stick to the App Store or Play Store. An Android device makes it very clear that stepping outside the Play Store is an “at your own risk” activity, which means those people are definitely informed. But if I, informed user, want to be paid to install a spy app on my system because I think the payment provided is worth the privacy cost, I should be able to step outside the App Store or Play Store to do it. Who Apple thinks they are to disallow that? It’s something called ownership btw.
kurkosdr,
+1000
I’m so sick of companies like apple dictating what we are allowed to do on our devices under the pretense of “we know what’s best for you”.
Here’s the thing, In an ordinary free market I would say apple should have a right to purge such apps from it’s stores and tell users to get those things elsewhere. However that argument becomes disingenuous and completely goes out the window when apple has unilaterally eliminated the rights of customers to go to other app stores. Now it becomes a free speech issue. While apple has a responsibility to remove things that are illegal, going further than becomes an attack on people’s legitimate freedoms. Because apple explicitly bans competitors in a free app market, the onus is on them to protect our freedom to run unpopular apps. People are always afraid of governments taking away our rights 1984 style, but it is the apples and googles of the world who pose the greater threat in actuality because they control the technology.
“I may not agree with the apps you run, but I’ll fight to the death your right to run them.”
As opposed to what, Thom? Easily corruptable governments? Governments are no more or less easily corrupted than businesses. After all, they are both made up of people when you boil it down, and the majority of people look out for themselves first, their friends next, and everyone else later if at all. It’s human nature. The only difference between a business executive and a government official, when you strip everything down to the essentials, is the hiring process and I don’t think so-called elections are any more or less foolproof than looking at someone’s resume and/or experience.
So, while I agree the right to limit what you can load on your own devices should be guaranteed, how would you propose to do that? Even if it were made illegal, the easily corrupted politicians would give in and make exceptions for themselves and their funding entities, whatever form those entities may take.
“These kinds of privacy-invading apps are a terrible idea, even if people get paid for them, and no platform should allow them.”
How does this align with your other views on device ownership Thom? Who are you to demand people handle their privacy according to your individual ethics?
After hearing a bit more about what really happened it all seems to come down to abuse by Google and FaceBook of their Enterprise certificates. Apparently “Apple’s enterprise program, which allows developers to use special certificates to install more powerful apps onto iPhones. are only supposed to be used by a company’s employees, Facebook (and Google) had been distributing their tracking app to customers” *
So it is completely logical that these Enterprise certificates are revoked in both FaceBook’s and Google’s situation. This does raise a huge question for me though: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes (who guards the guards). Both FaceBook and especially Google literally manage their own appstores and grant/deny almost identical access. If they violate these agreements themselves, why would we trust them to guard correctly against others?
* Source: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203551/apple-facebook-blocked-internal-ios-apps
avgalen,
Yeah. Of course the news is overwhelmingly covering this as a privacy issue, but I’d say both cases show that apple’s actions were less about user protection and more to do with apple disabling software to enforce the license restrictions protecting apple’s own bottom line. If you read some of the stories, apple revoking the certificate ended up disabling numerous internal apps that these companies have for things like vending machines.
This should be disconcerting to any companies using IOS for official enterprise usage. Apple has now demonstrated that it can and will disable enterprise developer certificates. I’m sure CEOs don’t think about this stuff when they decide to base their infrastructure on ipads, but being at the whim of another company’s kill switch is dangerous and irresponsible. These things are even used in hospitals. Now even if we don’t think apple would do anything nefarious, just the fact that apple has this power over enterprise users is insane.
Just imagine the kind of abuse this could raise for foreign companies that aren’t subject to US laws but are nevertheless within the reach of apple’s kill switch which is subject to US courts. Some will say I’m blowing it out of proportion, but anyone remember when the US tried to pressure microsoft to enforce US warrants on foreign soil?
https://cdt.org/insight/microsoft-ireland-case-can-a-us-warrant-compel-a-us-provider-to-disclose-data-stored-abroad/
The risks are only going to get worse the more we do away with owners having control over their own hardware.
There’s zero geopolitical reason a nation-state would want to allow one of it’s companies to do business inside of China, amiright?