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Apple Yanks Privacy App From the App Store
wiredmikey writes "Back in May of this year, Internet security firm Bitdefender launched 'Clueful,' an iOS App that helps identify potentially intrusive applications and show users what they do behind their back, and giving users an inside look at all the information app developers can gather about a user. Seems legit, right? Apple doesn't think so. Or at least they have an issue with something behind the App that sparked them to pull it from the App Store. After initially reviewing and approving the App that was released on May 22, Apple has had a change of heart and has just removed the App from the AppStore. It's unclear [why it was yanked], and Bitdefender told SecurityWeek that the company is under NDA as far as explanations for the removal. Interestingly, Bitdefender did share some data that they gathered based on Clueful's analysis of more than 65,000 iOS apps so far, including the fact that 41.4 percent of apps were shown to track a user's location unbeknownst to them."
Even without the app, after I JB-ed my device and started running PMP (Protect My Privacy), and Firewall IP, two apps available from Cydia, it was an eye-opener.
I ran a news app. It connected to an insane amount of ad, behaviorial targeting, monitoring, tracking, and other sites that had zilch to deal with news, and all to deal with obtaining what the user has. Eventually, I just allowed it to connect to its own sites and blacklisted everything else.
I fired up another app. It didn't just want contacts, it wanted in one's music collection, and connected to all kinds of sites, none relevant in any way to what it was doing.
Apple needs to revisit iOS's security model. Because Apple does a damn good job at stopping most stuff before it gets on the App Store, it has kept people safe for a while. However, iOS's security allows an app to do what it wants to except delete pictures once it gets installed on the device. The only time a user would get prompted is if the device was using the GPS or was going to use notifications. Other than that, it could slurp the contact list and use the phone as an outgoing spam machine.
Yes, they have to ask. The prompt is generated automatically in response to their request for location data, as you suggested, and suppressing it would do no good, since apps are sandboxed, meaning that they have no other recourse if the user denies the prompt or never sees it in the first place. I'm not aware of any way around it, and I seriously doubt there's a way around that's in use by a double-digit percentage of apps but has not yet been discovered by Apple and eliminated.
You could, of course, use Android without the Google integration (quite possible) or simply Something Else Entirely, like Meego, Symbian, Bada, WebOS, Blackberry or whatever. Choosing the iPhone for your privacy is just plain moronic.