Apple has agreed to give limited help to the Indian government develop an anti-spam mobile application for its iOS platform, after refusing to do so based on privacy concerns, according to “sources and documents” seen by Reuters.
The article says Apple execs flew to New Delhi in Octobr and told officials the company would help develop the app. The execs purportedly said iOS might not allow for some of the government’s requests, such as making call logs available within the app that would allow users to report them as spam, the official said.
Until now — assuming the Reuters article is correct — The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has been trying unsuccessfully to get its Do Not Disturb software included in the Apple App Store. The app lets people share spam call and text message logs with the agency, which uses the data to alert mobile operators to block the spammers. Apple says it violates its privacy policy.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is the regulator of the telecommunications sector in India. On June 6, the organization launched three new apps and a web portal “to ensure that the Indian users are fully aware of the telecom services offered to them”: Mycall app, MySpeed app and Do Not Disturb.
