Apple culls ad blockers

Citing privacy concerns, Apple has abruptly expelled from its store ad blockers that eliminate in-app ads.

Almost a month ago the world’s most profitable company released an update allowing ad blocking apps to piggyback on its Safari Web Browser on mobile devices.

Ads in smartphone apps have so far managed to evade the clutches of ad blockers, much to the delight of advertisers because upward of 80% of users’ time spent on smartphones is spent in apps rather than browsers.

Perhaps testing Apple's tolerance, some ad blocking developers created apps that managed to penetrate and eliminate the ads inside apps.

Been Choice launched on the Apple store, promising to remove ads in apps such as Facebook, Yahoo and even Apple’s own iAds. It, along with others, has been removed from the Apple store.

In a statement to media, Apple said: "Apple is deeply committed to protecting customer privacy and security. We’ve removed a few apps from the App Store that install root certificates which enable the monitoring of customer network data that can in turn be used to compromise SSL/TLS security solutions. We are working closely with these developers to quickly get their apps back on the App Store, while ensuring customer privacy and security is not at risk."

Apple’s move echoes what Google did in 2013; removing app-penetrating ad blockers such as Adblock Plus.

In a tweet, Been Choice said it will remove ad blocking for Facebook, Yahoo, Yahoo Finance and Pinterest and will resubmit its app to Apple.

@reneritchie We will remove ad blocking for FB, Google, Yahoo, Yahoo Fin., and Pinterest and resubmit tomorrow, to comply.

– Been® Choice (@beenchoice) October 9, 2015

It elaborated in a statement to media: "Apple is enforcing end-to-end encryption for its apps. We explained to Apple that (1) we were unpacking the data stream for the sole purpose of removing ads from the following apps: Facebook, Yahoo, Yahoo Finance, Google, Pinterest – and only in Block Mode. (2) No data from any other app was touched. And (3) that we were explicit in our app and on our website, and in our presentations to the press about what we were doing, and for what purpose, with what special safeguards.

"We will remove this capability to block ads in Facebook, Yahoo, Yahoo Finance, Google, and Pinterest tonight and resubmit tomorrow morning for expedited approval. The ad and tracker blocking in other apps will not be impacted. We asked for explicit guidance on blocking ads in Apple News [not covered in the above requirement], and our contact at Apple would not give us a ruling. So we will submit a version that will continue to block iAds and see if we can get back on.

"The core proposition of our app, Choice, to enable users to better control their privacy and own the value of their own data, remains extremely relevant. And the new app will still present the most powerful ad and tracker blocking tool, and offer real choice to users."

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