Apple finally stood up to Facebook and Google – and made a powerful point

“Apple finally stood up to Facebook and Google on matters of privacy, and it made a powerful point about the influence it wields in mobile,” Sara Salinas reports for CNBC. “Apple this week revoked the enterprise developer licenses of Facebook and Google, temporarily disabling internal employee-only apps, after reports that each company had side-loaded apps onto Apple’s operating system that violated the company’s rules. The license suspensions halted app development inside both companies and disrupted basic corporate functions until the privileges were restored Thursday night.”
“Facebook employees couldn’t access even their calendars or company transit schedules, according to a report by The New York Times. Facebook will now have to rebuild ‘a few dozen’ internal apps, which could take weeks, according to a company memo defending the company’s research app obtained by Business Insider,” Salinas reports. “‘Apple’s view is that we violated their terms by sideloading this app, and they decide the rules for their platform,’ Facebook executive Pedro Canahuati said in the memo seen by Business Insider. ‘Our relationship with Apple is really important — many of us use Apple products at work every day, and we rely on iOS for many of our employee apps, so we wouldn’t put that relationship at any risk intentionally.'”
Salinas reports, “The move this week underscored just how much damage Apple could do to Facebook’s and Google’s core businesses if it wanted to.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: These were blatant violations on Facebook and Google’s parts of the terms of Apple’s Developer Enterprise Program and they each got what they deserved. In fact, Apple could easily have left them to twist on the wind, suffering much more.
The lesson is clear: Abuse your enterprise certificates, lose your enterprise certificates.
SEE ALSO:
Apple clears Google, Facebook to run private iOS apps again via reinstated enterprise certificates – February 1, 2019
Apple bans Google from test apps after it admits using ‘research’ app – January 31, 2019
Should Apple’s power over Facebook worry the rest of us – January 31, 2019
Big surprise: Google is also abusing Apple’s Enterprise Certificate system to collect extensive data on users – January 30, 2019
Apple blocks Facebook from running all of their internal iOS apps by revoking distribution certificate – January 30, 2019
Apple bans Facebook’s ‘research’ app that paid teens to install VPN that spies on them – January 30, 2019
Hidden documents reveal how Facebook made money by bamboozling children – January 18, 2019
Roger McNamee: I mentored Mark Zuckerberg. I loved Facebook. But I can’t stay silent about what’s happening. – January 17, 2019
Apple CEO Cook calls for U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation in TIME op-ed – January 17, 2019
Senator Marco Rubio introduces privacy bill to create federal regulations on data collection – January 16, 2019
Apple endorses comprehensive privacy legislation in U.S. Senate testimony – September 26, 2018
Trump administration working on federal data privacy policy – July 27, 2018