[drivebyacct2]

It's Apple's fault that developers took advantage of an API to abuse their users' trust and privacy?

No. It's Apple's fault for failing to protect their customers that buy into their walled garden, but even then, there isn't exactly a hugely black and white list of things that Apple considers to be "fair use" and "evil" in privacy contexts.

The app developers CHOSE to use, upload, store and reuse this data, not Apple. Shifting the blame to Apple is making extreme excuses for app developers.

>Until then, lets leave the app developers alone.

I can't begin to wrap my head around this viewpoint. At all. Let's give them a free pass. Despite them violating my implicit privacy, they can't be blamed. If they can, they should be able to, that's what you're saying...

[Drbble]

It is not just violating privacy. It is unauthorized access to a computer system, aka malware, aka hacking/cracking. If you did that to Path it would be a felony and you would go to jail. Why is it not a felony in the other direction?

[drivebyacct2]

Because this access is authorized? I would argue that the presence of an API (whose purpose is to provide access to the data they consumed) constitutes "authorized" access. The app doesn't intrude or circumvent the privacy protections of iOS.

On the other hand, if an app was able to forcibly allow itself access to Location Services and ignore the iOS setting, I would argue that is unauthorized.

Granted, I have absolutely no idea what the context of unauthorized is from a purely legal standpoint.