A Brazilian judge banned the Secret app for violating national laws, and in response Apple has complied with the orders and removed it from the App Store in the country.
Here’s the plot twist, if Apple (and Google, Microsoft, etc) didn’t pull the app from the online stores the companies would face a fine of $8,876 per day, each.
In Brazil, it’s illegal to make anonymous attacks without giving defendants the right to, well, defend themselves. As a result, the judge also ordered the companies to remove the application from customer handsets remotely.
The problem, however, is that Apple (or the others to our knowledge) have never removed third party applications from phones remotely. Sure, they take apps down from the App Store all the time, but they’ve never removed them from individual phones. If you’ve purchased an App, and you’ve backed it up locally (to your Mac), you’re still able to use it. You can restore it at any point.
The court order could change things. We’re not sure if Apple has the ability to alter phones remotely, or if they’re even willing to do it. It could open them up to a huge PR nightmare. At this point, we have no information on whether the app has been removed from individual handsets. If you know, or you’ve heard, let us know.
