Porn Apps Bypass Apple Ban Via Enterprise Certificate System

In December, the social media site Tumblr banned all porn and other adult content, as AVN.com reported, allegedly because the Apple iTunes store deleted the Tumblr app after finding images that had slipped through the site’s content filters. But despite Apple’s strict ban on porn, an investigation by the site TechCrunch published on Tuesday found at least a dozen hardcore porn apps that had slipped past Apple’s censors using the company’s “Enterprise Certificate” program. TechCrunch also found 12 “real money” gambling apps on iTunes that also were developed under the Enterprise Certificate system. Apple’s Enterprise system is designed for companies to develop apps for internal use by their employees and other authorized persons only. But the system requires only that app developers pay a $299 fee to Apple, have a business ID number, and pledge verbally that they will not distribute the apps outside their own company. But according to TechCrunch, with business ID numbers often publicly available, “with just a few lies on the phone and web plus some Googleable public information, sketchy developers can get approved for an Apple Enterprise Certificate.” Sometimes developers can get around even those lax requirements simply by purchasing a pirated Enterprise Certificate on the black market, a problem that is particularly widespread in China, according to MacRumors.  The problem of lax Enterprise program enforcement by Apple was first exposed last month, when an earlier TechCrunch investigation revealed that Facebook and Google were using the program to develop apps used to gather user data from smartphones. In Facebook’s case, the social media giant used the program to develop a “Facebook Research” app that hoovered up all information on a phone user’s online activity. Facebook then paid users, largely teens and young adults, a monthly fee to install the app on their phones. Apple banned both Google and Facebook from the Enterprise program, but quickly restored both. In Google’s case the ban lasted just seven hours.  The developers of porn apps PPAV and iPorn, as well as the other porn apps found distributed through Apple, will likely not be as lucky. “Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked,” Apple said in a statement. Photo By Dweider / Wikimedia Commons