The U.S. tech giant has indeed been locked up in a tussle with India’s telecoms regulator for a year. Officials have been complaining that Apple has dragged its feet on advising the government how to develop an app that would thus allow iPhone users to report the unsolicited marketing texts or calls as spam.
What sort of help has Apple offered?
- To be able to give limited help to the Indian government to develop an anti-spam mobile application for its iOS platform. The U.S. tech giant has been indeed in a tussle with India’s telecom regulator for over a year. The government app was launched on Google’s Android platform last year, but an industry source with direct knowledge of the matter said Apple pushed back on requests for an iOS version due to concerns that a government app with access to call and text logs could compromise its customers’ privacy.
- To develop the app, but only with limited capabilities, according to a government official aware of the matter.
- Apple to develop an app which, to a certain extent, can solve the requirements.
- The new iOS features to combat spam text messages would help the government build the app.
- The company has been lobbying the government for tax breaks to expand its phone assembly operations in the country, where it reported doubling its revenue versus the previous year for the quarter ending Sept. 30.
- Balancing the growth and market share by protecting customer privacy has become a defining challenge for global tech companies such as Apple, that regularly clashes with governments in allowing access to content on their devices, especially for law enforcement needs.
What are the app tussle and privacy woes all about?
Annoying marketing calls and no doubt unsolicited commercial text messages have indeed become a big problem in India. The mobile users are of the view that they have the option to register themselves under a so-called “do not disturb” service in order to block marketers, businesses who have made use of multiple phone numbers for promotions.
Prior to the launching of the app the user are also allowed to access contacts and also view the required text messages. Users are then able to start reporting numbers as being spams.
Apple has done sufficient lobbying for its cause and has had several meetings and has written emails to the government regarding its project. Whatever said and done are unique and do involve high technological applications that are awesome.
The anti-spam application is very innovative and will prove to be useful in highlighting spam texts and messages. The meetings are meant to establish what is possible and what is not possible as far as the application is concerned.
Criticism has been leveled against the application that it is a whole lot of waste in time and effort; but, nevertheless, the concept of an anti-spam application appears to be quite interesting and fascinating. Apple has also been appreciated for its new idea.
