14 DAY TRIAL // Apple devoted a whole lot of slides to privacy during their 2015 Worldwide Developers Conference, while explaining how their next iOS operating system won’t mine your email, photos or your contracts in the cloud, because “honestly” Apple doesn’t want to know.
So basically, everything you do on the device stays on the device, and the user is in control of everything that happens there. So with its iOS 9 operating system, the Cupertino tech giant is embedding a feature called App Transport Security (ATS), which will require app developers to use an advanced security protocol, in order to keep things under control.
Apparently, Google cares a lot about privacy as well and is backing up Apple. Still, the Mountain View tech giant has pointed out that not every developer out there is going to be able to work with Apple’s new standards that arrive with iOS 9.
This will leave a lot of app publishers who aren’t running the new protocol approved by Apple’s new encryption out in the cold. Basically, their mobile ads won’t run, so if ads don’t work, no revenue will be coming in.
Google the savior, or not...
But Google doesn’t want to see publishers get stuck like that. So this week, the search giant provided a solution to this issue. It published a workaround in the form of five lines of code that disable Apple’s encryption.
Google says that this is just a momentary fix, until developers have a chance to really breathe in and truly comprehend Apple’s new rules. Interestingly enough, disabling the protocol doesn’t seem to violate any of Apple’s rules. Pretty odd.
However, Google’s willingness to solve the problem for app developers wasn’t really appreciated by proponents of privacy, which accused the company of prioritizing ads over more important aspects.
Later on, Google added an explanation for why they posted the workaround, in an attempt to absolve itself.
“We wrote this because developers asked us about resources available to them for the upcoming iOS 9 release and we wanted to outline some options. To be clear, developers should only consider disabling ATS if other approaches to comply with ATS standards are unsuccessful,” the company said.
Still, the question remains: Is Google doing the right thing or is it just supporting advertising above anything else?