Apple (quietly) stops developers from gathering new contacts data for economic purposes

[Enover5]

Sources:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/apple-cracks-down-on-apps-sharing-information-on-users-friends

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#data-use-and-sharing

Apple now preventing developers from collecting your contacts data and making databases out of it isn't a bad news in itself, but the very fact that it was allowed for allllllllllll the time the terms of use of the App Store were applied is absolutely horrifying.

 

Quote

Developers ask users for access to their phone contacts, then use it for marketing and sometimes share or sell the information -- without permission from the other people listed on those digital address books.

 

Quote

“When someone shares your info as part of their address book, you have no say in it, and you have no knowledge of it."

 

Quote

The phone maker didn’t publicly mention updated App Store Review Guidelines that now bar developers from making databases of address book information they gather from iPhone users. Sharing and selling that database with third parties is also now forbidden.

 

This pretty much means that Apple's reputation for [autain tone] "being fair to their customers by putting an accent on privacy and data privacy" was only pure b******* until now - and who knows if there aren't other willingly-made loopholes or exploits in their policies. Plus, let's not forget that Apple has stated the developers won't have the right to collect new data, but developers can keep the data they are already in full possession of.

 

Decidedly, both Apple and Facebook have way too often been in the spotlight these recent days due to errors from them accumulating and combining over time, and ESPECIALLY because of privacy issues, in the current context of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

 

Let's also remember applications running on Android must ask for the permission - if necessary - to obtain access to contacts info, although we do not know what developers make of it if such a permission is given to an app.

 

EDIT: It is important to note that yes permission was asked but it was for the huge majority REQUIRED for the app to run.

[Master Disaster]

11 minutes ago, Enover5 said:

Sources:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-12/apple-cracks-down-on-apps-sharing-information-on-users-friends

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#data-use-and-sharing

Apple now preventing developers from collecting your contacts data and making databases out of it isn't a bad news in itself, but the very fact that it was allowed for allllllllllll the time the terms of use of the App Store were applied is absolutely horrifying.

 

 

 

 

This pretty much means that Apple's reputation for [autain tone] "being fair to their customers by putting an accent on privacy and data privacy" was only pure b******* until now - and who knows if there aren't other willingly-made loopholes or exploits in their policies. Plus, let's not forget that Apple has stated the developers won't have the right to collect new data, but developers can keep the data they are already in full possession of.

 

Decidedly, both Apple and Facebook have way too often been in the spotlight these recent days due to errors from them accumulating and combining over time, and ESPECIALLY because of privacy issues, in the current context of the Cambridge Analytica context.

 

Let's also remember applications running on Android must ask for the permission - if necessary - to obtain access to contacts info, although we do not know what developers make of it if such a permission is given to an app.

I'll be very honest here, I'm usually leading the pack when it comes to calling out Apple over bullshit but I'm also the first to point out that in terms of user privacy policies Apple is miles ahead of most other large tech companies.

 

I think you'll find Apple has been in the news for not releasing customer data way more than the opposite.

 

They're guilty of a lot of bullshit practices but not protecting user data isn't one of them.

[Sauron]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

I'll be very honest here, I'm usually leading the pack when it comes to calling out Apple over bullshit but I'm also the first to point out that in terms of user privacy policies Apple is miles ahead of most other large tech companies.

 

They're guilty of a lot of bullshit practices but not protecting user data isn't one of them.

I mean... I'm pretty sure this piece of news says they shared your contacts with anyone

[Christophe Corazza]

I can just see it... When Tim was out there trash talking Facebook's practices, his people were in the office going "Oh no! Someone's got to shut him up! Does he even know we do exactly the same thing?" 

 

Go to Facebook. They'll sell them anything they want. They seem to be the wholesaler for personal data.

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I mean... I'm pretty sure this piece of news says they shared your contacts with anyone

Technically not true, they allowed app developers to ask for permission to see your contact data, the user was still required to accept that.

 

The news said they've now stopped it from happening which is a good thing, right?

[Sauron]

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Technically not true, they allowed app developers to ask for permission to see your contact data, the user was still required to accept that.

 

The news said they've now stopped it from happening which is a good thing, right?

Well yes, it's a good thing, but clearly they weren't such paragons of privacy before

[Christophe Corazza]

So they're going to remove Facebook from the App Store right?
Or I declare hypocrisy!

[Ryujin2003]

Inb4 this is only an Android problem.

[Christophe Corazza]

11 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Technically not true, they allowed app developers to ask for permission to see your contact data, the user was still required to accept that.

 

The news said they've now stopped it from happening which is a good thing, right?

 

8 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Well yes, it's a good thing, but clearly they weren't such paragons of privacy before

 

Obviously this is definitely a right move. Although, I'm wondering why it took them so long?

To me it seems that they didn’t do anything to protect you, they just changed the rules to cover their ass if some developer does it.

[Cheezdoodlez]

Apps must ask for a permission to your contacts before they have access that data. Personally I would never give access to my contacts but considering who has my number I'm still fucked. 

 

Good thing apple is putting a stop to this at least.

Also it's not that far fetched to belive that Google play store apps are able to do the same thing. So we are all fucked iPhone and Android users alike! 

[Sauron]

14 minutes ago, Christophe Corazza said:

 

 

Obviously this is definitely a right move. Although, I'm wondering why it took them so long?

To me it seems that they didn’t do anything to protect you, they just changed the rules to cover their ass if some developer does it.

Hint: they never cared until it started to be in the press

[Christophe Corazza]

Just now, Sauron said:

Hint: they never cared until it started to be in the press

 

That brings us back to what I've said before: 

 

16 minutes ago, Christophe Corazza said:

To me it seems that they didn’t do anything to protect you, they just changed the rules to cover their ass if some developer does it.

 

[DrMacintosh]

Awesome, if Apple is doing this now, I can’t imagine what these other corporations like Google, Microsoft, and FaceBook are doing and have been doing for quite some time with this kind of data. 

 

And was stated earlier, the user still had to give permission to apps for them to get access to this data. So it definitely wasn’t a big issue as far as Apple was concerne, but they figure they might as well put a hard rule one it. 

 

Good to see Apple continuing their drive to put user privacy first. 

[Guest]

TBH if you give your number away you don't know what people will do. Thats why you get the spam callers etc. 

[ScratchCat]

1 hour ago, RorzNZ said:

TBH if you give your number away you don't know what people will do. Thats why you get the spam callers etc. 

This was not simply giving away your number but rather "Let us have all your contacts or you can't use this app". That is not exactly "freely" giving away contact details.

1 hour ago, Cheezdoodlez said:

Good thing apple is putting a stop to this at least.

Also it's not that far fetched to belive that Google play store apps are able to do the same thing. So we are all fucked iPhone and Android users alike! 

VPN firewall, block all Google apps and any other unwanted apps and you are fine (probably). Or move to China.

[NemesisPrime_691]

I use TrueCaller to find out unknown callers on my Android device but without the app since it builds its database off of people's contacts. So if a person has saved Grandpa Linus as a contact name for some number, it is very much possible that I may see the same name for the number if I search in Truecaller.

 

So does this mean an end for such apps (eventually Truecaller) for the iOS devices? That might be pretty hugh since Truecaller is a big name in caller ID apps.

[Enover5]

17 hours ago, SpiderGuy said:

So does this mean an end for such apps (eventually Truecaller) for the iOS devices? That might be pretty hugh since Truecaller is a big name in caller ID apps.

As I already mentionned, apps can keep all the information they've gathered, but won't be able to collect new. So these apps will probably stay kinda relevant for some time, although their future clearly isn't assured.

[RedRound2]

Oh my god, heres another apple shitposter. One, you have to explicitly give permission for the app to even access contacts, second. This is how apps like Truecaller even work in the first place. Being a user of Truecaller myself, i personally wouldnt allow it to form a dataase out of my contacts but the app is extremely useful to find people, so Im not sure about this. 

 

Also, if you are going to call out on Apple for this, you might as well call out on Android devices because its still very possible to do this on Android

[captain_to_fire]

Does PUBG mobile and Fortnite request contacts data?

[Cheezdoodlez]

15 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Does PUBG mobile and Fortnite request contacts data?

Nope. Only thing pubg and fortnite requests is push notifications 

[vorticalbox]

19 hours ago, RedRound2 said:

Oh my god, heres another apple shitposter. One, you have to explicitly give permission for the app to even access contacts, second. This is how apps like Truecaller even work in the first place. Being a user of Truecaller myself, i personally wouldnt allow it to form a dataase out of my contacts but the app is extremely useful to find people, so Im not sure about this. 

 

Also, if you are going to call out on Apple for this, you might as well call out on Android devices because its still very possible to do this on Android

Exactly what I was thinking, apps always had to ask for permission, they now have to also ask to make a copy of the data I suppose.

 

On android I have an app called net guard that acts a vpn but controlls access of apps to the internet.

 

I current have 26 apps allowed and 346 blocked. Highly recommended it for anyone running Android and worried about privacy.

[Tenelia]

Before you guys confuse yourselves any further, Apple's stance has always to require app developers to ask for explicit permissions for each use case. e.g. Separate popups asking for Notifications, phone contacts access, microphone, camera, etc.

 

Google and Facebook does not do that. As far as I know, the way the other organizations do it was to lump everything into a wall of text or single point of agreement. Users therefore had no idea their data was being accessed, and certainly not when parts of their phone hardware was being used without their access.

 

 

Apple's change now merely tightens a loophole, but that's not to be conflated with them intentionally allowing developers to gather user contact data at their expense.

 

[abazigal]

How is Apple even going to enforce this? Ie: how would they know if someone is hawking my contact data? Or is it just to cover their backsides when someone does?