OS X 10.8 Beta 2 Forces Third-Party Apps To Ask For Permission When Accessing Contacts

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We finally have control over our contacts in Mountain Lion.
We finally have control over our contacts in Mountain Lion.

In addition to the new features we detailed earlier today, Apple’s second OS X Mountain Lion beta adds a nifty security feature that will prevent third-party applications from accessing your contacts without your permission.

When an app attempts to access your address book under Mountain Lion, you will have the ability to provide access or deny it. This can prevent apps from accessing your personal data without your knowledge.

The feature comes just weeks after a scandal surrounding Apple’s iOS operating system after it was discovered that Path, a popular social network for mobile devices, was accessing contacts without asking for user permission, or even notifying its user of its behavior.

At the time, Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr issued a statement which read:

Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines. We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release.

It seems Apple has taken the issue so seriously that even its OS X operating system now allows users to allow or forbid access to their address book. We’re still waiting for the feature in iOS, but we’re expecting it to pop up in the next beta release.

[via MacRumors]

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