One of the latest news that is being discussed in the backstage is the latest Facebook scandal. The latter misused a developer account with Apple (Apple Developer Enterprise Program) to distribute a Facebook Research app to end users to collect data on how they use their phones.
Violation of the Apple Developer Enterprise Program terms
Apple Developer Enterprise Program is only for distributing apps within the company, primarily for testing purposes, and the apps do not pass through the control of Apple itself. By distributing to users, there has been a violation of the terms of the program.
The main problem is that the Facebook Research app required users to have a relatively large amount of permissions on their phone and installed a VPN that routed data through Facebook’s servers. This made it possible to record a lot of data about user behavior.
After the case became public, Apple revoked Facebook’s certificate, banning further distribution of Facebook Research outside of the public App Store.
But lest we point only to Facebook’s transgression, it’s worth mentioning that Google didn’t exactly play fair either. The latter, for a change, ran the Screenwise Meter app through the Developer Enterprise Program, essentially circumventing Apple’s restrictions in a similar way to Facebook. Here, too, the culprit did not escape punishment. Apple did not revalidate this company’s Developer Enterprise Program certificate either.
The current status is that after about two days, Apple renewed both companies’ certificates. So all’s well that ends well. Lesson to all: don’t scare the snake with your bare feet, sometimes it really doesn’t pay.