Apple Pulls App That Let You Stalk People You Follow on Instagram

Last month, the photo-sharing application Instagram removed the Following tab from its apps and website. The company revealed that the cost discloses information about the people one follows in the social networking site. Some of this information was quite sensitive and affected the privacy of the users. 

The social networking site revealed that users felt surprised when they noticed their activities showing in the tab. As a result, the firm decided to remove the tag from its application. But, some other applications were reported to do the same by recreating the same idea. 

Image Credit: The Verge

Response From Instagram

An application named Like Patrol was doing the same thing, what a follow tab does. In October, the firm sent a cease and desist notice to Like Patrol. In a recent development, Apple removed the controversial application from the App Store, CNET confirmed. 

Like Patrol was providing multiple features to know someone and track their activities and behaviour without giving the victims any hint. These features violets the essential web privacy; as a result, Apple decided to remove it from the App Store. The application will notify you if anyone of you follows having an interaction with a post. The app claimed to use an algorithm to detect these details. 

The application got this sensitive information by scraping the public profile for data, and it violets the policies set by Instagram, a spokesperson from Facebook revealed to a media house in October. A media house, CNET, reached to Apple for a response about the removal. The firm announced that the Like Patrol application violets the guidelines set by the firm; as a result, the company removed it from an immediate basis. But the company declined to comment on further details. Like Patrol has not commented on the issue yet. 

As Patrol, the application is currently not available for Android users.