Apple has pulled an unofficial WikiLeaks app from its App Store. While early reports had it that the app was pulled for soliciting donations to WikiLeaks — the app cost $1.99, and the App Store Review Guidelines have it that “[a]pps that include the ability to make donations to recognized charitable organizations must be free” — Apple has indicated that the app “violated our developer guidelines … Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or targeted group in harm’s way.”
The $1.99 WikiLeaks App offered access to the whistleblower site and the @wikileaks Twitter stream and was described as providing “‘instant access to the world’s most documented leakage of top secret memos and other confidential government documents,” according to a Google cached version of the site provided by TechCrunch. The app was created by a third-party development firm called Hint Solutions, which lists Igor Barinov as its general manager.
In what one hopes does not become a self-fulfilling prophecy, TUAW worries that Apple’s rejection of the app could provoke the wrath of 4chan and Anonymous, which have retaliated against businesses that have cut off WikiLeaks’ funding or web access with attacks over the course of the past month.
