Apple has proven just how much power it has over tech giants

“Apple must have been pounding protein shakes and swilling creatine, because the iPhone maker spent much of its week flexing its 42-inch biceps all over Silicon Valley,” Daniel Howley writes for Yahoo Finance. “Last week, the company went after Facebook for breaching Apple’s enterprise developer program agreement. In essence, the social network used the developer program, which is designed for companies to test apps internally, to send an app to some consumers that tracked their user data.”
“Apple subsequently revoked Facebook’s use of the enterprise program, following a report about the issue by TechCrunch, cutting off the social media giant’s ability to use such apps. It also impacted Facebook employees’ ability to access company-specific apps they may need to do their jobs,” Howley writes. “It turned out, however, that Facebook wasn’t the only company breaking Apple’s agreement. Google was also sending out apps to consumers by abusing the enterprise developer program. And like Facebook, Google had its access revoked.”
“Apple’s ability to kick Facebook and Google off of their own apps proves just how much power the iPhone maker has. What’s more, it helps illustrate how much Facebook and Google need Apple,” Howley writes. “If those companies want access to the 1.4 billion Apple devices on the market, they have to follow the hardware maker’s rules.”
MacDailyNews Take: Gee, what a concept.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Some companies, the privacy-trampling kind, obviously, thought they were too big to follow Apple’s rules for utilizing enterprise certificates. They have since discovered otherwise.
The lesson is clear: Abuse your enterprise certificates, lose your enterprise certificates.
SEE ALSO:
Apple finally stood up to Facebook and Google – and made a powerful point – February 1, 2019
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
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “BD” for the heads up.]