“Apple Inc.’s refusal so far to approve the Indian government’s anti-spam iPhone app is infuriating regulators, potentially harming the company’s efforts to sell more products in the country,” Saritha Rai reports for Bloomberg.
“The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has been trying unsuccessfully to get its Do Not Disturb software included in the App Store. The program lets people share spam call and text message logs with the agency, which uses the data to alert mobile operators to block the spammers,” Rai reports. “Apple has said the app violates its privacy policy, according to the regulator.”
“‘Nobody’s asking Apple to violate its privacy policy,’ said Ram Sewak Sharma, chairman of the Delhi-based telecom regulator,” Rai reports. “Sharma, who banned Facebook Inc.’s Free Basics internet access program last year, said there hasn’t been a resolution after half-a-dozen meetings with Apple. While Apple’s policy allows it to share user data with affiliates and strategic partners, the Indian government’s Do Not Disturb app only requires a limited, pre-approved level of data sharing, said Sharma, who has a degree in computer science from the University of California at Riverside. Apple’s policy states that sharing data with any other entity isn’t allowed.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last month:
TRIA bureaucrat R S Sharma clearly doesn’t understand how iOS works or why it’s important for Apple to protect users’ privacy. If users want to share phone numbers and other sources to block, then they can do so on their own. No third-party app should be able to access such data willy nilly. It’s blatantly insecure – which is why it’s no problem for Google to allow in Android and also why Apple will never allow it.
SEE ALSO:
Apple accused of ‘anti-consumer’ behavior by Indian regulator – August 8, 2017
India is the worst country for Apple to be in, the government is corrupt and the people are too poor to be able to afford apple products. Apple will be forced to dumb down on features and quality to satisfy the bankrupt Indian population. Indians are better off with Androids and the control thier govt have on them as a result. India is Apples biggest mistake, it is a country of pain
Also, how come the Indian telecom govt bureaucrats dont do something about the spammers by making spamming and annoying ads illegal, that would stop the spammers. But NO, the govt wants to control its citizens and monitor them in the pretense of helping with the spamming nuisance. LIARS
You are making the a very common mistake that is made by people in first world countries – Laws do NOT prevent any offense or any action in countries where the rule of law is not respected nor observed. Laws give you the legal right to punish offenders IF they are caught (or can be caught) IF the punishment is severe enough to be a deterrent, and IF there are law enforcement resources to apprehend and prosecute offenders.
From what I’m reading, this is passive, user UNapproved sending of data to The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India all the time.
Nothing is stopping The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India from making this an item-by-item, incident-by-incident approved collection of data. IOW: It SHOULD require user approval for every instance.
I’m effectively doing that now and have been since 1998 by forwarding ALL my spam to SpamCop.net. I have complete, total, utter, absolute, comprehensive, full, thorough, [insert favorite adjective here], CONTROL over what I share at all times.
If The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India doesn’t like that level of user control, then tough bovine udders! Privacy will forever be a human right. No totalitarian garbage allowed.
… And YES, I subscribe to a VPN (virtual private network) so that even my ISP (Internet service provider) can’t collect my data unless I specifically let them.
And yes indeed, thanks to actions by #MyStupidGovernment, all US ISPs now have full rights to collect all the user/victim data they like at all times. Thanks a lot, #MyStupidGovernment. 😛