Ban on Facebook by Apple for Tracking Browsing Habits of Teens

Apple Inc claimed that they had banned Facebook Inc from a particular program. They have designed a program that helps companies to control the iPhones of their employees. Apple said that Facebook has inappropriately used this program to track the browsing habits of teens.

Apple offers certificates that allow businesses to have deep control of the iPhones. The remotely installed apps can monitor data and delete sensitive information about the company on iPhones. This program is suitable for companies where the whole staff has iPhones for their official hours. The privacy settings are different for personal phones.

A few days back, there were reports that Facebook was paying its young users to install a Facebook Research app. The application used business tools of Apple to get the permission of iPhone users to the installation of this software. With this software, Facebook was tracking the web browsing habits of teenagers.

Apple expelled Facebook from this app program. They are making this app for business organizations who want to track the iPhones of their employees. Facebook is getting advantage of its membership to distribute this app to consumers. Apple is not happy with this apparent breach of the agreement.

There is no effect of this ban on other apps of Facebook in the App Store of Apple. It means Facebook can’t distribute internal applications to its employees. Facebook claims that the significant aspects of this research program were wholly ignored and that it obtained the permissions of users. As per Facebook, it was a research app, instead of a spying program. They were adding people to this program for research purposes after asking their permission. They were also making payments to participants.

Facebook said less than 5% of the members in this program were teens. They obtained a signed parental consent form from all teens.