As data privacy concerns surge around the globe, Apple Inc. has decided to take stringent action against iOS apps that violate its privacy policies. Reports claim that Apple is pulling down apps that share location data with third parties without user consent and has started informing the owners via email that since they violated its guidelines it has decided to weed them out of its Apple store.
According to the latest guidelines which are specifically being formulated for App Store, applications which do not take consent of users before sharing their location data with third parties will not be entertained from now on.
As sharing location data without the consent of users shows a clear-cut violation of sections 5.11 and 5.1.2 of the App Store Review Guidelines, the decision to pull down such apps becomes valid for Apple, Inc.
At the same time, if app owners fail to specify on how the location data of users is being shared with 3rd parties, it can trigger Apple’s move to ban those apps from being displayed in its application store.
Those applications which are now no longer compatible with newer iPhones and those which were not built on 64-bit architecture are also being removed from the app store.
As a result of this policy change, the number of iOS Apps in the App Store shrank to 2.1 million in early 2018, after showing figures of over 2.3 million in 3Q 2017.
Note- From early this week, Google News for iOS is said to be utilizing real-time artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to analyze and organize breaking news. Also, the app with the said name has been replaced with another new app with the name Google Play Newsstand on iOS App Store.
