Facebook had a bad run in 2018. The social media platform went through two big scandals related to user privacy and from the looks of it, 2019 is not shaping up to be a good year either. Facebook has recently released a new app that offered teens $20 in gift cards in exchange to let Facebook spy on their smartphone activity. While this app research didn’t get too much attention on Android, it has just been removed from the App Store because it violates Apple’s developer guidelines against harvesting user data.
Apple Forces Facebook to Remove “Spy” App
Apple announced earlier today that Facebook’s new research app which targets volunteers between the ages of 15 and 35 has been used to get near-total access to the data on people’s smartphones. Therefore, Apple wants the research app to be removed from the App Store.
Facebook Gives Out Gift Cards in Exchange for Information
It’s crazy to think that Facebook has resumed to giving people $20 gift cards in order to harvest additional user data. What’s even more interesting about this research app is that one would expect Facebook to try and change its ways and approach towards harvesting user data when considering that more and more people are leaving Facebook because they don’t trust the social media platform anymore.
This is Not the First Time…
What we should mention is that this isn’t the first time that Apple had to ask Facebook to remove a research app from the App Store. The first time that it happened was last year when Apple realized that Facebook is using a VPN service called Onavo Protect in order to search and identify up and coming competitors and either clone their features or purchase their company.
