Apple warned the iOS development community last August that it would start rejecting applications submitted to the App Store for accessing a user’s unique identifier (UDID). In case you didn’t know, every iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad possesses a unique alphanumeric string used for registration and tracking.
Amid privacy concerns from the U.S. Congress and other groups regarding how apps use an iOS device’s personal info, Apple has decided to start enforcing its new policy in the App Store.
TechCrunch reports:
So here’s what I’m hearing. Two of the 10 review teams started doing blanket rejections of apps that access UDIDs this week. Next week, that will rise to four the ten teams, and keep escalating until all 10 teams are turning down apps that are still using UDIDs.
UDIDs are used chiefly by advertising networks to market and target certain demographics. Developers have been able to sell their user base’s UDID collection to a group of ad networks, but a new system will need to be devised moving forward. An open-source project called OpenUDID hopes to be the remedy, but its success will depend on developer adoption moving forward.
