Apple has been accused of accidentally erasing applications from the Apps store in a crackdown that was meant to wipe out all unregistered gambling content. Multiple developers projected their complaints via social media platforms. They said that their applications that were never involved in any manner of gambling were erased. They considered the move to be extremely malicious as they were not even informed. To make matters worse, they were not gambling applications.
The affected applications include a gift sharing service, polish magazine and a site for sending videos of Xbox games to family and friends. Apple was requested by the developers to comment on the issue. A message was sent to all the affected developers that stated that Apple was erasing gambling related applications made by unregistered individuals in an exercise to decrease fraudulent activities. Apple said that they wanted all these individuals to comply with the government rules and regulations. All illegal online gambling was going to be terminated until legal means were used to conduct business.
A few months ago, Norway had succeeded in getting Apple Company to get rid of all gambling sites from its App store in the nation. However, the latest removals appear to have affected several developers across the globe. Apple confirmed that some of the applications that were accidentally erased were being recovered. One man by the name Simon Stovring, who is a Copenhagen-based developer behind a gift sharing application called Gifferent, noted that Apple Company stated that the apps deleted contained gambling. Shockingly, they never addressed how they managed to detect that all the apps were gambling related. Simon went on to say that it seemed like an unfortunate but sincere mistake. Over ten developers had contacted Simon to inform him of the incident that had happened. Little did they know that he was one of the perpetrators of the mess that had happened.
All the developers that were hit by the surprise were so furious and demanded answers from Microsoft. A co-owner of a Polish app magazine, Wojtek Pietrusiewicz, reported that the app had also been caught up in the mix. The co-owner of the app stated that the removal of their app might have taken place because it contains more comprehensive access to the internet. The app allows users to click through to the gambling information easily. The app is said to have thousands of users. The owner reported that the app was down for more than 15 hours and did cost their business.
