Apple resets the certificate of Facebook and Google apps for iOS
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Apple has restored the certificate of Google apps for iOS. Just yesterday we heard the news that Facebook and Google had taken advantage of a certificate exclusively designed for internal use by companies.
The Cupertino company considered that both Google and Facebook had misused it, with the aim of recording and monitoring user activity. Hours before, it had been news that Mark Zuckerberg's company, Facebook, had come to pay young users to install a VPN on their iPhones to spy on them.Apple policies expressly prohibit this practice.
The fact is that a few hours later, the Apple company has restored the so-called "business development certificates." This has been confirmed by Facebook to Mike Isaac, a journalist for the New York Times. This means that from now on, internal iOS apps will work normally again.
Google apps have also been restored
This Thursday night, the Apple company has also restored Google's access to its own internal applications for iOS. Hours earlier had restored access for private Facebook apps, also for iPhone.
A Google spokesman explained to Ars Technica that, indeed, their applications were restored again.As with Facebook, Apple had restricted access – by locking the certificate – for certain private applications, which allowed the company to access user information to their own benefit.
The TechCrunch medium explained yesterday that Google had distributed an application called Screenwise Meter to users aged 18 and over. The problem is that it would have done it, nothing more and nothing less than since 2012, using the business certificate that Apple provides to companies so that they can use their applications internally. As if this were not enough, the application would be capable of collecting and storing data from iOS users, ignoring the privacy policies set by Apple in its application store
The tensions between Google, Facebook and Apple are evident
The conflict has caused glaring tensions between the three companies. And is not for less. For its part, Facebook was in permanent contact with the Apple team to resolve the incident as soon as possible Not surprisingly, access to internal applications is essential to carry carry out all kinds of tests.
Exactly the same thing happened with Google. The one from Cupertino verified that the company had violated the conditions imposed, so that the internal applications (which are not few) of Google were blocked. This would include, for example, applications such as Google Maps, Hangouts or Gmail, which are the most important. However, it seems that those affected would have been many more. Now the certificates have been restored, but it is evident that this misuse has generated the discord.
After the problem was made public and Google's actions were discovered, the company was quick to apologize. In fact, immediately afterwards disabled the operation of the controversial application: Screenwise Meter.
