Google is also monitoring iPhone usage with a private app

[The AchieVer]

Google is also monitoring iPhone usage with a private app

 

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

Google is distributing a private app that monitors how people use their iPhones, in much the same way that Facebook did — and got in trouble for. Google’s app, reported today by TechCrunch, rewards users with gift cards for letting Google collect information on their internet usage.

The app appears to rely on Apple’s enterprise program, which allows for the distribution of internal apps within a company. That could be a problem: Apple says these apps should only be used by a company’s employees, and companies that violate the policy could be banned, having all their internal apps disabled. That’s exactly what happened to Facebook today.

Google’s app, called Screenwise Meter, is part of a program that’s been around since 2012, which first started tracking household web access through a Chrome extension and a special Google-provided tracking router. Screenwise is open to anyone above 18, but allows users 13 and up to join the program if they’re in the same household; that’s different than Facebook’s tracking app, which specifically targeted people between the ages of 13 and 25.

 

TechCrunch

Though both Facebook’s Research app and Google’s Screenwise apps are fully opt-in, recent privacy issues have put the spotlight on tech companies’ vast collection of user data. The apps aren’t necessarily malicious since users must consent to join the programs, but $20 a month from Facebook or a couple gift cards from Google in exchange for total access to all your data is, as our Silicon Valley editor Casey Newton argues, “a bad bargain for participants.”

The question is whether Apple will enforce a similar kind of punishment on Google as it has on Facebook. This morning, Apple shut down Facebook’s ability to run and distribute internal iOS apps, denying distribution to the pre-release version of Facebook, Instagram, and more. In a statement about Facebook, Apple said “any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked.”

We’ve reached out to Google and Apple for comment.

 

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