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WikiLeaks App Removed From Apple Store
Stoobalou writes "An 'unofficial' WikiLeaks App which contained published documents from the Cablegate leaks has been withdrawn from the Apple App Store.The $1.99 App created by developer Igor Barinov has been removed from sale without explanation despite the fact that all of the information contained in it is publicly available."
Go Apple! Fuck yeah! /sarcasm
Anyone else feel like Apple is slowly turning into a government, as far as their attitude and exertion of control is concerned?
Living With a Nerd
Well, I'm sure Safari would be pulled next because it makes the same information accessible.
i wonder what anonymous will do to apple's app store.
Read radical news here
http://images.worldofapple.com/appstoreguidelines_9910.pdf
Donations can only be collected with free apps. That's where this specific app went wrong. Simple. Funny that Apple needed 4 days to find out.
Unfortunately the First Amendment doesn't apply.
Actually it's fortunate it doesn't apply, because if you think about it, what you're asking for would mean that government would literally have the mandate to *force* private individuals to carry a message they may not want to. Having a right to freedom of speech doesn't mean that other private individuals should be required by law to carry and spread anyone else's message (even at their own cost). Apple consists of private individuals, if governments could force Apple to carry anyone's speech, they could force you and me to carry speech too. If a kid scrawled graffiti on your wall, hey, that's "speech", government should force you to leave it up. Thankfully that's not how things work.
That said, dammit Apple, you keep disappointing me on a regular basis with the closedness and the draconian control over what is and isn't allowed in your 'app store'.
Fortunately there is competition, and competing app stores and platforms are popping up like mushrooms. So I'm not too worried, app stores will be forced to remain quite open thanks to competition. Apple's attitude is already reflecting in their market growth vs the growth of others like Android, and they'll have to ease up a little or they'll keep losing share.
Apparently this was because the app asked for donations.
The app clearly violated Apples policy on donations, which is most likely the case the app was removed, and was clearly admitted to by the apps creator. Boy do people read way too much into things.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
no, that's the nice thing about iTunes. the file is on your computer as a .app file and you can use it on your iphone as long as you want.
Apple's a business. They haven't made their billions by marketing to transparency-obsessed hippies.
Not that there is anything wrong with transparency-obsessed hippies, I'm just sayin'...
There is zero-value to Jobs distributing any app having anything to do with Mr. Kryptonite, Julian Assange. Risks far outweigh rewards. Open-source ideologues that don't grasp this concept AND have the cash to contemplate an Apple-gadget purchase AND are willing to overlook Google's routine co-opting of personal privacy will, I'm sure, all run out to buy an Android now. But somehow I don't think those numbers will affect the Apple stock price all that much...
...proceeds going to the families of the Intelligence agents and sources who are killed from it's release.
You're making shit up. Please stop.
There is a war going on for your mind.
http://images.worldofapple.com/appstoreguidelines_9910.pdf
See section 21. Donations can only be collected with free apps, and only in certain ways. Most likely since Apple cannot confirm that $1 is being donated like the app submitter is saying, it got pulled. If the person resubmits it with in app donations it will probably pass again. Otherwise we will have an explosion of "pay me $1.99 and I'll donate $1" apps all over the place and no money getting donated. Where as in app donations can be confirmed.
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I find it hilarious that you don't know the difference between publicly available & copyright infringement.
p.s. the cables aren't under copyright either.
There is a war going on for your mind.
I don't write Apps on apple platforms.
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~Me
Thank god for conveniences.
Otherwise Apple's bias would be obvious even to you.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Very true. There is, hoever the related concept of freedom of speech. This is not is much abnout legal obligations as it is about a moral belief that all opions should be heard even if some people find it offensive.
Applying these sorts of arbitrary limitations on who might use a platform is generally considered pretty reprehesible behaviour.
What about YOUR bias?
The rules are clearly laid out in the license and they violated one (or more). Thus it got pulled out.
If the app gets corrected AND it's resubmission gets refused, THEN we will have reason to cry foul.
Until then, I don't see why everyone is getting all worked up given Apple wants to play fair with others who might have gotten the axe for the same rule violation.
In other news, Assange is suffering a major sense of humour failure over the Guardian publishing details from the leaked police report into his case.
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/assange-turns-on-the-guardian-over-assault-case-coverage/s2/a542064/
If you're very, very quiet and listen very, very carefully, you might be able to hear the world's tiniest violin playing for Assange. ;-)
This "Apple is a business" argument is stupid. That's like saying, "The mafia is a business". Yes, it's true. But the argument doesn't address the behavior. As a society, we don't allow mafia type businesses with their murder and extortion. We don't have to allow Apple's closed garden. Business so often means "amoral amassing of profit". Where it could, and to my mind should be, an engine for providing the financing to do good works. Why people think that because an organization is a "business" that they should be free from moral constraints, is beyond me.
This is not is much abnout legal obligations as it is about a moral belief that all opions should be heard even if some people find it offensive.
Applying these sorts of arbitrary limitations on who might use a platform is generally considered pretty reprehesible behaviour.
Well here's Apple's stance on this moral belief: They are pro-censorship, anti-free-speech, end of story, have a nice day.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Yes, I'm all for placing public pressure on companies to promote and behave according to such ideals ... but not by using the force of the state, just by voting with our wallets, complaining loudly, etc.
Quite. So that's an arbitrary limitation on freedom of speech. One that they have every legal right to apply but still indicates that Apple do not actively endorse freedom of speech as a virtue.
Except again, the app was not asking for donations, the money for donations was not coming from any links in the app itself, nor was the author mentionning it in his litterature. What the author chooses to do with the money he receives is not up to Apple at all. Whether it be buying a Porsche, a house, a night on the Vegas strip or simply donating it to a cause of his choosing. The rules don't apply unless you have a DONATE button somewhere or mention that X$ amount of each purchases goes X cause in your submission text.
So people, stop playing the "donation" card, you're all wrong unless you have proof that he was actually breaking the rule. Giving away his own hard earned money is not breaking the rule.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Your trying to exercise a technicality that doesn't exist. You pay the app author $1.99 minus Apple's cut, and as a result, he donates $1 to Wikileaks. So, $1 of the app's price is a donation to Wikileaks. Pretending to separate them temporally doesn't work.
Likewise, you cannot legally get out of sales tax by helpfully donating some cash to a local business and also, at roughly the same time and as a result of your donation, being given, free of charge, one of their products.
How is Apple choosing what to sell in their app store any different than Sears choosing what to sell in their stores?
It's not. People here complain about Wal-Mart not selling stuff rated NC-17 all the time. If Sears stopped selling something because it was associated with Wikileaks, it would probably get a story here, too.
I explicitly release the above into the public domain.
Classified documents leaked to the public are still classified. Apple is subject to US laws, so it's likely they're protecting themselves from possible legal action. Making money off an app used to distribute classified US government documents probably wouldn't sound good in court, if it ever came to that.
How is it that this "point" keeps popping up every single time Apple censors something? Sears doesn't restrict anyone else from selling products to you; Apple does. There's only one app store. Buying from Apple is implicit support for censorship.