Apple Pulls App That Provided Access to WikiLeaks

Another company appears to have joined the growing ranks of those refusing to do business with WikiLeaks. Only in this case, it's not even WikiLeaks that's being targeted, but a smart phone app that provides access to the secret-sharing website.

Apple pulled Hint Solutions' $1.99 WikiLeaks app from its App Store, according to Igor Barinov, general manager of Hint Solutions, a Moscow company. The app was designed, in part, to ensure uninterrupted access to WikiLeaks even if the main website or its mirrors are unavailable, according to Barinov.

"[T]he WikiLeaks app will continually feed new content and leaked documents regardless of coordinated attacks and server disruptions to the original WikiLeaks website," Barinov wrote in a press release describing the new app. Barinov had promised that $1 from each app purchase would go to "Internet freedom projects," though he did not specify which organizations would actually receive the money.

Apple has not provided Barinov with a specific reason for its decision. However, according to The New York Times, Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller said it was pulled "because it violated our developer guidelines." She didn't say what the WikiLeaks app specifically violated, but she said all apps "must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or group in harm's way."

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Since WikiLeaks began releasing classified diplomatic cables, a number of businesses have refused to process payments or do business with it and its associated websites, including Amazon, Visa, MasterCard and, most recently, Bank of America. But not everyone thinks that this latest move was much of a blow to the organization, or even Internet freedom.

"It didn't bring much to the party," longtime Apple watcher Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune writes about the app. Elmer-Dewitt says the app didn't provide anything that couldn't be gotten for free on the WikiLeaks website or by following the WikiLeaks Twitter feed.

In the meantime, Barinov has provided updates about the app on his Twitter page. "They [Apple] said there is no way to get application back and will send me official answer in two days," he tweeted.