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Apple Is Fighting a Good Fight Against Facebook and Google
But it can’t win, exactly
Who is losing in the “war” that broke out among Apple, Facebook, and Google this week? It is certainly not you or me; it is unambiguously two misbehaving tech giants.
Facebook and Google exploited a feature intended for “enterprise developers” to distribute apps that collect large amounts of data on private users, TechCrunch first reported. Both companies paid users to install the apps and have their behavior meticulously tracked. These “research” apps violated Apple’s terms, leading the iPhone maker to revoke Google and Facebook’s enterprise certificates, which disabled the data-collecting apps on iOS in addition to internal apps used by employees at the two companies. (Apple restored access to Facebook’s internal apps on Thursday and was working on Google’s according to the New York Times.)
Apple’s maneuver has been characterized by some as a chilling demonstration of the company’s power. Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel suggested in a tweet that it was cause for concern: First, they came for our enterprise certificates, then… well, what, exactly?
The implication that Apple is exhibiting some monopolistic urge to gutshot Facebook and Google makes close to zero sense. The events of this week will not affect their bottom…
