The fallout from Facebook’s controversial research app – The Verge

How Apple’s enterprise app program became the new Wild West of mobile apps

2019-02-20T11:00:00-05:00

Apple's iOS platform has a seedy underbelly that, for years, has been lurking largely unseen, letting both app makers and iPhone owners bypass the App Store's restrictions to load pirated games, media, and all manner of software that Apple forbids. The most staggering part of this illicit app underworld? Apple is responsible.

The company creates and distributes a suite of developer tools for an annual fee of just a few hundred dollars that allows sketchy apps onto the iPhone. While the result isn't quite as robust as the jailbreaking community that emerged in the iPhone's earliest years, it's abetting perhaps an even murkier landscape of ap …

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This illicit iPhone app store has been hiding in plain sight

2019-02-20T08:30:00-05:00

Apple has long touted its iOS ecosystem for both the security and the tightly controlled approach the company has taken with its App Store, overseeing the approval of more than 2 million pieces of software to date for its mobile marketplace. But I've known for years that there are ways around that process, either by jailbreaking or by misusing what are known as enterprise certificates, which are designed for large companies to distribute apps internally, that let you directly install software on an iPhone.

Still, I was as shocked as anyone to find what amounted to a bizarro world App Store of sorts sitting in plain sight, downloadable with …

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Apple restores Facebook’s ability to run internal iOS apps

2019-01-31T18:09:07-05:00

Facebook said today that Apple has restored its enterprise certificate, the software permission that allows the social network to load internal mobile apps onto the devices of employees, beta testers, and research participants.

The move comes roughly one day after Apple blocked Facebook from using the program after a TechCrunch investigation revealed it had re-skinned its Onavo VPN app, pulled from the App Store last summer, as the "Facebook Research" app. Facebook was paying teenagers and adults $20 a month to use the app, which was not distributed through proper iOS channels and was instead sideloaded using Facebook's enterprise certifica …

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Apple blocks Google from running its internal iOS apps

2019-01-31T16:13:57-05:00

Apple shut down Google's ability to distribute its internal iOS apps earlier today. A person familiar with the situation told The Verge that early versions of Google Maps, Hangouts, Gmail, and other pre-release beta apps stopped working alongside employee-only apps like a Gbus app for transportation and Google's internal cafe app. The block came after Google was found to be in violation of Apple's app distribution policy, and followed a similar shutdown that was issued to Facebook earlier this week.

TechCrunch and Bloomberg's Mark Bergen reported late Thursday that the apps' functionality had been restored; Apple appears to have worked more …

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Apple’s power over Facebook ought to worry the rest of us

2019-01-31T06:00:00-05:00

Programming note: I'm on assignment tomorrow and Friday. The Interface will return on Monday.

At around 2:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Facebook sent me an update about the controversial market research program revealed on Tuesday by TechCrunch. Effective immediately, the company said, the program would end on Apple devices. It also took issue with some of the language in TechCrunch's report:

"Key facts about this market research program are being ignored," the company said. "Despite early reports, there was nothing 'secret' about this; it was literally called the Facebook Research App. It wasn't 'spying' as all of the people who signed up to p …

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Google disables app that monitored iPhone usage in violation of Apple’s rules

2019-01-30T17:22:51-05:00

Google just disabled a private iOS app that monitored users' iPhone usage, after it was revealed today that the app violated Apple's distribution policies in the same way that Facebook's usage-tracking Research app did.

Called Screenwise Meter, the iOS and Android app gave users who opted into Google's Opinion Rewards program gift cards in exchange for tracking their internet usage data. The iOS version of the app relied on Apple's enterprise program, which allows for the distribution of apps with special privileges to be used only by a company's employees. The app has now been disabled on iOS, though it's still available on Google's Play S …

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Lawmakers are furious with Facebook: ‘wiretapping teens is not research’

2019-01-30T16:18:28-05:00

Tuesday night, a TechCrunch investigation revealed that Facebook had been secretly paying teenagers to install a VPN that let the company see nearly everything they did on their phones. Today, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are lashing out at the tech giant, raising new questions about how the company might fare in future privacy legislation.

"Wiretapping teens is not research, and it should never be permissible." Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said in a statement. "Instead of learning its lesson when it was caught spying on consumers using the supposedly 'private' Onavo VPN app, Facebook rebranded the intrusive app and circumvented A …

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Google also monitored iPhone usage with a private app

2019-01-30T16:04:42-05:00

Google distributed a private app that monitored how people use their iPhones, in much the same way that Facebook did - and got in trouble for. Google's app, reported today by TechCrunch, rewards users with gift cards for letting Google collect information on their internet usage. The app has since been disabled.

The app relied on Apple's enterprise program, which allows for the distribution of internal apps within a company. That could be a problem: Apple says these apps should only be used by a company's employees, and companies that violate the policy could be banned, having all their internal apps disabled. That's exactly what happened t …

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Apple blocks Facebook from running its internal iOS apps

2019-01-30T10:27:37-05:00

Apple has shut down Facebook's ability to distribute internal iOS apps, from early releases of the Facebook app to basic tools like a lunch menu. A person familiar with the situation tells The Verge that early versions of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and other pre-release "dogfood" (beta) apps have stopped working, as have other employee apps, like one for transportation. Facebook is treating this as a critical problem internally, we're told, as the affected apps simply don't launch on employees' phones anymore.

The shutdown comes in response to news that Facebook has been using Apple's program for internal app distribution to track teen …

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Teens deserve more than $20 for giving all their phone data to Facebook

2019-01-30T06:00:00-05:00

One popular criticism of Facebook and other tech platforms is that they never compensate users for their time, their data, or their contributions. Facebook is one of the richest companies in the world because of the data we hand over to it for free, the argument goes. Why doesn't it pay up?

Today we learned that Facebook has heard these criticisms - and if you're aged 13 to 35, it would like to give you a $20 gift card.

In exchange, all you have to give up is total access to all data on your phone, and also maybe screenshot your Amazon purchases and fork that over too. Josh Constine has the scoop in TechCrunch:

Since 2016, Facebook has be …

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