Google has declined to remove from its app store a Saudi government app which lets men track women and control where they travel, on the grounds that it meets all their terms and conditions.
Google reviewed the app — called Absher — and concluded that it does not violate any agreements, and can therefore remain on the Google Play store.
Western companies talk a lot about morals and values back home, but overseas, these very same companies drop those morals and values left, right, and centre – whether it’s Apple ignoring all its privacy chest-thumping in China, or in this specific case, Google having zero qualms about hosting and spreading an application that Saudi-Arabian ‘men’ use to opress and abuse women.
I can easily find an app to track ‘my beloved ones’, even in my own language (Dutch). It is not difficult to find apps that can be used for exactly the same purpose. Maybe saying out load what the real purpose attracts attention, but don’t forget the pay the same amount of attention to other apps that are written with exactly the same purpose in mind!
My own opinion is that you a relation should be based on trust, so those kind of apps are not needed in a good relationship. Just like I trust my wife, I also trust my children.
Exactly, even Google Maps can be used for this purpose.
They wouldn’t need it if women were loyal.
drcoldfoot,
Found the incel.
The situation is actually more complex than it may seem at first glance. It has been reported in German tech media that this app has been successfully used by some women from Saudia Arabia to escape to Europe and apply for asylum there.
The app is designed, among other things, to let the male ‘patron’ control from which airport and to which location the woman can travel. So all it takes for a Saudi woman is to get access to her male ‘patron’s phone, and then she can use the app to give herself permission to fly to Europe.
Double this.
Thanks, I didn’t knew this and it puts a huge twist on the initial narrative.
Though I expect they’ll somehow block this loophole soon enough… 🙁
I am glad that I use an OS which does not decide for me which apps I am allowed to use. Instead of licenses and agreements, I get source! And I wield it wisely!
Religion makes people do truly heinous things.
~”without religion, good people do good things, and bad people do bad things; but for mostly good people to do bad things, this requires a religion”
I don’t understand the problem: Saudis can legally go to a government office and do task X in person, filling some paper forms. They can also open a government website and do task X in their browser. Then why ban an app which allow them to do the same task X, in that app, as opposed to doing it in a browser window?
I would tend to agree with this. It’s not like the app enables them to do this, it just provides a different way for them to do it. The fact that such things are even possible is an issue of the government of the country in question, _not_ of this particular app.
Beyond that though, there’s may be pressure from the government to keep the app or face sanctions (never underestimate the power of threatening to exclude a company from a sizable market), and it’s also significantly better for the users to have it in the app store (and if you’re going to argue that they don’t deserve the same level of security as everyone else because they don’t happen to follow _your_ moral code despite doing nothing illegal, then you’re nearly as bad as the people you’re condemning).