Policing the boundaries of a “contingently generative” device :: The Future of the Internet

Policing the boundaries of a “contingently generative” device

August 1st, 2008 | by jz | Published in Generativity, iphone | 5 Comments

The iPhone has come some way since the days when Steve Jobs pledged that Apple would “define everything that is on the phone.” Yet even with a software development kit allowing for outside coding, Apple reserves the right to … define everything that is on the phone. Application makers submit their apps for Apple’s approval, which can be withheld — or revoked — for any reason.

Reasons might not just have to do with quality; they may have to do with policing the uses of the phone so they don’t conflict or compete with Apple’s (or AT&T’s) own business models. A developer called Nullriver makes several PC and iPhone utilities, and for awhile offered one called Netshare: apparently, during its brief existence, it allowed iPhone users to link (“tether,” used very differently than I do in the FOI book) their phones to their PCs, so that their PCs can benefit from the iPhone’s unmetered wide-area Internet connection.

Venturebeat is reporting that Netshare is no longer available in the iPhone Apps Store, and the link to its product page at Nullriver has only a message about a site update.

What made Netshare disappear? If it was because it allowed users to use the phone in a way not approved by Apple, should we care? Does it matter if it turns out that people who initially bought the app at $9.99 from the iPhone Apps store find that it no longer works?

Update: Kevin P. and Engadget report that the app is back — at least at its direct link, if not among the store’s searchable apps.

Update 2 (Aug. 3 ’08): It’s down again. Nullriver says:

NetShare, where did it go?

Update 2: Apple has taken it down again, with no explanation yet again.

Update: NetShare is now back up and available from the AppStore!

We’re not quite sure why Apple took down the NetShare application yet, we’ve received no communication from Apple thus far. NetShare did not violate any of the Developer or AppStore agreements. We’re hoping we’ll get some feedback from Apple today. Sorry to all the folks that couldn’t get it in time. We’ll do our best to try to get the application back onto the AppStore if at all possible. At the very least, we hope Apple will allow it to be used in countries where the provider does permit tethering.

Responses

Feed

kevin says:

August 1st, 2008 at 3:31 pm (#)

Netshare is back up in the App store today (and can be found with the search function contrary to some reports). I just picked it up and will try and see if I can get it to work this weekend.

I figured it was $10 spent in the name of research and testing.
Bertil Hatt says:

August 1st, 2008 at 7:48 pm (#)

I guess this is the first app with a clear problem between the three players (the cell-phone operator shouldn’t be too keen, while Apple truely doesn’t care) and that needs one layer of effective separation to guarantee generativity.

I can’t imagine an app that could damage Apple directly, except maybe a Android-like breakthough, or an app that offers an alternative to most of the App Store. . .
Parchment on the iPhone at Toolness says:

August 10th, 2008 at 3:58 pm (#)

[...] all its enormous benefits, is the fact that its native platform is quite sterile, or at least contingently generative. I was hoping that the open web would be one way to get around this, and getting Parchment to work [...]
The iPhone kill switch :: The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It says:

August 14th, 2008 at 6:49 pm (#)

[...] to kill any apps already residing on users’ phones. Instead, it has “merely” yanked apps from the Apps Store, which is the only place to acquire them. Recently Apple got rid of the “I Am Rich” [...]
Flash for Android, not the iPhone :: The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It says:

November 25th, 2008 at 5:33 pm (#)

[...] it on a website, and let iPhone users flock to it. (The CEO of Nullriver, whose app NetShare was banned months ago, has already expressed interest in this.) According to one survey, 33% of mobile phone [...]

Blog

Controlling Cyberspace

This semester, we’re starting an exciting new class, aimed not at lawyers, but undergraduate CS students here at Harvard. It’s called CS42: Controlling Cyberspace – and we’re sharing the syllabus online. Anything big we’re missing? Read more »

Computers Going Wild?

Computers Gone Wild: Impact and Implications of Developments in Artificial Intelligence on Society was an informal discussion that took place at Harvard Law School on December 8^th, 2011. Hosted by Jonathan Zittrain, Marin Soljačić and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, we brought together eighteen mostly local guests to discuss the ways that AI is changing society. Unlike futuristic predictions involving the Singularity or the underlying technology, this workshop explored current technology. Sessions included discussions on warfare, finance, education, and labor. Below is a list of attendees and a summary of the discussion.

Ideas for a Better Internet

Ideas for a Better Internet, or i4bi, is an interdisciplinary course at Harvard and Stanford that challenges students from law, computer science, and public policy to come up with novel and plausible ways to improve the Internet and its use. i4bi centers on immersing participants in Internet history, technologies, and politics, so that students can come up with ideas that help to build a better Internet — however they define “better.” Read more »

Microsoft Echoes Apple App Store Requirements

Here at Future of the Internet, we’ve already talked a little bit about Apple’s content requirements for both the iOS and Mac App Stores in JZ’s The PC is Dead post. As JZ said,

“Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Mark Fiore found his iPhone app rejected because it contained “content that ridicules public figures.” Fiore was well-known enough that the rejection raised eyebrows, and Apple later reversed its decision. But the fact that apps must routinely face approval masks how extraordinary the situation is: tech companies are in the business of approving, one by one, the text, images, and sounds that we are permitted to find and experience on our most common portals to the networked world. Why would we possibly want this to be how the world of ideas works, and why would we think that merely having competing tech companies—each of which is empowered to censor—solves the problem?”

Apple’s approach is an example of a larger phenomenon. Read more »

A SOPA compromise is floated

Last week several members of Congress — Senators Wyden, Cantwell, Moran, and Paul, and Reps. Issa, Lofgren and Chaffetz — floated a proposal to substitute for the contentious proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, previously discussed here. Sen. Wyden’s office has commented on the compromise, and TechDirt has a writeup and a copy of the document here. The proposal omits the elements of SOPA that had run into the most resistance. Gone is tinkering with fundamental Internet architecture such as the use of the domain name system. Gone is the involvement of the Attorney General. Gone is the criminal copyright streaming provision that could, theoretically, make a teenage Justin Bieber a felon for streaming amateur videos featuring his renditions of songs by his favorite artists.In all these ways, the Wyden compromise is significantly better than SOPA. So what’s left? Read more »

About Jonathan Zittrain

Jonathan Zittrain is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School

Tweets from Z

An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.