“Over the past several years, Apple has removed, denied, or otherwise prevented a number of Bitcoin-related apps from being available to users on the App Store,” Jordan Golson reports for MacRumors. “Most recently, the company required the developers behind Gliph — a secure messaging app that also allowed users to transfer bitcoin from one Gliph user to another — to remove the bitcoin sending feature from its app.”
“The company has told a number of developers behind Bitcoin-related apps that their apps contain content — or facilitate, enable, or encourage an activity — ‘that is not legal in all the locations in which the app is available, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines,'” Golson reports. “While bitcoin use and ownership is not de jure illegal, it nonetheless exists in a legal gray area that could potentially affect users at some point. Gliph, the app mentioned earlier, did not even transfer bitcoin directly.”
“For the most part, Apple has declined to explain how a bitcoin-transferring or -trading app could be approved, nor in what countries the bitcoin functionality might not be allowed,” Golson reports. “It merely refers to section 22.1 of the App Store review guidelines which states that it is the ‘developer’s obligation to understand and conform to all local laws,’ The company appears to be taking a wait-and-see approach, both protecting itself and — perhaps more importantly to the company — protecting its users.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]