Apple reportedly blocked Facebook’s internal apps from working on employees’ phones

Just imagine the havoc, if you are a Facebook employee and can’t open Fb app on Apple phones. Yes, this just happened. Reportedly Apple has blocked Facebook’s internal apps from working on employees’ phones.

Due to this Facebook’s thousands of employees are reportedly unable to use the company’s internal iOS apps after it was caught running a data-gathering research app that violated Apple’s developer policies.

This move came in response to reports from earlier this week that Facebook’s misused Apple’s enterprise-app program, meant for internal use in a company, to run a research app that gathered data on people’s phone activity in exchange for payment.

Facebook said it was shutting down the app, which paid people (including teens) up to $20 a month to install a virtual private network used to track data and activity.

Later, Apple contradicted Facebook’s statement with one that said it had revoked Facebook’s enterprise certificates after finding it had violated its developer policies.

The move has big consequences for Facebook, as employees are reportedly locked out of internal apps.

The streaming news network Cheddar reported that some describe it saying they thought Facebook was being “unfairly targeted” by Apple.

How it started?

The two tech companies have clashed previously, but this latest incident was sparked by a TechCrunch report on Tuesday, according to it, Facebook has been quietly running an app called Facebook Research that tracks people’s phone activity and web traffic in exchange for compensation.

Through the program, named as “Project Atlas” internally, Facebook paid teens and adults up to $20 a month to install a smartphone virtual private network, or VPN, a sort of intermediary software for connecting to the internet.  That gave the company access to a participant’s trove of personal data.

According to the BuzzFeed News reporter Ryan Mac, the program included teens age 13 to 17, who were able to participate with parental consent that was as simple as checking a box