Thread: Apple drops WikiLeaks app, Google keeps it

Apple Removes WikiLeaks App From App Store
Alexia Tsotsis



Looks like an unofficial iPhone and iPad app that let you view WikiLeaks site content and follow the WikiLeaks Twitter account on the go has been removed from the App app store earlier today. The app used to be available here (here’s the Google cache).

From the WikiLeaks App’s description:

“The Wikileaks app gives instant access to the world’s most documented leakage of top secret memos and other confidential government documents.”

Basically the paid app was selling WikiLeaks content (available for free) for $1.99. Its entry into the app store on December 17th was actually surprising, as Apple is usually quite strict and somewhat vague about its app approval standards. WikiLeaks and founder Julian Assange are quite controversial, to put it lightly but I’m not sure if the app directly violated anything in Apple’s TOS.

In the past couple of weeks corporate biggies Amazon, PayPal, Mastercard, Visa and Bank of America have all tried to disassociate themselves in one way or another from WikiLeaks. If this isn’t some kind of glitch, Apple has plenty company.

I’ve contacted both Apple and and the developer for more information and will update this post when they respond.

Thanks: Appsfire

Update: Developer Igor Barinov responds with the following official status update, showing that the app was indeed removed from sale.



techcrunch.com

Dec 23, 2010

Apple drops WikiLeaks app, Google keeps it


BOSTON - APPLE has joined a growing number of US companies that have severed ties with WikiLeaks, removing an application from its online store that gave users access to the controversial website's content.

But Google, which operates the second-largest online mobile applications store, has kept more than half a dozen apps available on its Android Marketplace that make it easier to access the confidential US government documents WikiLeaks had released on its site.

The two distinct approaches highlight how it is far tougher for developers to get on the iPhone's platform than Android's.

Some of the Android programs provide direct access to the WikiLeaks cables, and one of them even alerts users whenever a new leaked document from the WikiLeaks repository is made public. In past weeks, a host of companies withdrew services for WikiLeaks, which has outraged US authorities by releasing thousands of confidential State Department cables.

But in a backlash against organisations that have cut off the site, cyber activists have taken to targeting companies -such as Visa Inc - seen as foes of WikiLeaks. The website's founder, Julian Assange, was released on bail last week from a jail in Britain, where he is fighting extradition to Sweden over alleged sexual offences.

'Is it likely that Apple could become a target? Of course,' said John Bumgarner, chief technology officer for the US Cyber Consequences Unit, and an expert in such attacks. 'Anyone that distances themselves from WikiLeaks could potentially become a cyber target.' -- REUTERS

Opinion

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth...133209261.html

It only takes one bad Apple

Apple's recent removal of a WikiLeaks application from its itunes App Store could lead to a product boycott.

Mark LeVine
Last Modified: 22 Dec 2010 13:14 GMT


(snip)

Not so cool. Not so free. No longer for Me

So I guess Apple isn't as cool as it seems.

Or as functional, if one is concerned about the proper functioning of the public sphere and the democracy that rests upon it.

Come to think of it, WikiLeaks hasn't been convicted of breaking any law, nor has it been shown to have put any Americans in harm's way, unless you consider exposing the lies of our political leaders to the public putting them in harm's way. So Apple has banned WikiLeaks preemptively, when it had no legal reason to do so. That is the essence of self-censorship, the greatest sin a media company can commit.

And that leaves me, with my slowly dying MacBook Pro, wondering how I'm going to survive in what will likely soon be a post-Apple world, at least in my case. I don't want to leave Apple, just as I don't want to stop shopping at Amazon.com, using my Master Card to get more miles for my frequent flyer plan, or paying with PayPal when I just want to pay straight from my checking account.

But however much easier these products and services have made my life, the threat posed by their treatment of WikiLeaks (and who knows what other, far less well-known organisations we don't even know about) to the most basic freedom citizens must enjoy in order for democracy to survive - to know the full truth about what their governments do in their name and with their money - cannot stand.

However much we might love our iPods, iPads and MacBooks, if we are not willing to sacrifice aesthetic elegance for political principle, we don't really deserve to enjoy them in the first place.

Sorry, Mr. Jobs. Email me when I can get WikiLeaks and porn on an iPad. Until then, it looks like I'll be going with a Vaio, Linux and CD Baby when my old MacBook finally dies.

Look, it's Steve Jobs role in life to protect iTards from silly things like this.

That's why they buy his crap. No porn, wikileaks or anything remotely salacious as far as the Ninja boy is concerned.