- The latest privacy headlines around Facebook (FB +1.4%) have the social network in Apple's (AAPL +5.2%) crosshairs: Apple is banning a "market research" app Facebook used to draw in all of a user's mobile data.
- Facebook had already agreed to pull the app from Apple's App Store after reports emerged that Facebook was paying people to install the VPN that gathered personal data, activity that as of last summer is against Apple privacy guidelines. Now Apple won't let Facebook distribute it again.
- Facebook apparently took advantage of a developer program that allowed approved partners to test and distribute apps specifically for their own employees, Recode reports. Such apps don't get reviewed and approved as usual, but Facebook used the program to pay non-employees as much as $20/month for their data.
- "Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple," Apple says. "Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to protect our users and their data.”
- Now read: Facebook: No Bottom In Sight
Original article