Trademark violations on Apple AppStore
There are a bunch of snakeoil and typically closed source apps with ads injected in them under the name of Tor for iOS in Apple App Store. Some of them have pretty good rating (which I believe is because of lack of any official or even free and trusted-community-based Tor Browser for iOS). Now that the Onion Browser by Mike Tigas is finally free for everyone to download and use, I think we should get serious about taking those fake ones down. Specially those that use the name or logo of Tor.
If they have hundreds of 5star reviews, who knows how many people are actually using them and thinking they're anonymous and secure online.
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Here are some that I found. They are either using Tor name/logo, claiming to be anonymous or the only Tor browser for iOS:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tor-powered-onion-web-browser/id1125965631
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/secure-onion-web-browser-tor/id1146423813?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tor-powered-browser-secure/id1157080332
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onion-browser-tor-powered/id1139111958
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/red-onion-tor-powered-web/id829739720
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onion-vpn-with-tor/id793839665
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tor-vpn-free-vpn-onion-vpn/id1180290098
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onion-tor-powered-browser/id1052323344
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/red-onion-tor-browser/id1109277833
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onion-tor-browser-for-anonymous/id1152322705
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onion-tor-powered-browser/id1140845347
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onion-tor-browser-for-anonymous/id1162607213
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tor-vpn-browser-for-anonymous/id914252107
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/secret-secure-web-browser/id1146417816
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/safe-browser-secure-photo/id966483488
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/onion-vpn-with-tor/id793879925
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Trac:
Description: There are a bunch of snakeoil and typically closed source apps with ads injected in them under the name of Tor for iOS in Apple App Store. Some of them have pretty good rating (which I believe is because of lack of any official or even free and trusted-community-based Tor Browser for iOS). Now that 'Onion Browser' is finally free for everyone to download and use, I think we should get more serious about taking those fake ones down. Specially those that use the name or logo of Tor.If they have hundreds of 5star reviews, who knows how many people are actually using them and thinking they're anonymous and secure online.
to
There are a bunch of snakeoil and typically closed source apps with ads injected in them under the name of Tor for iOS in Apple App Store. Some of them have pretty good rating (which I believe is because of lack of any official or even free and trusted-community-based Tor Browser for iOS). Now that the Onion Browser by Mike Tigas is finally free for everyone to download and use, I think we should get serious about taking those fake ones down. Specially those that use the name or logo of Tor.
If they have hundreds of 5star reviews, who knows how many people are actually using them and thinking they're anonymous and secure online.
Android:
Judging by the reviews, a lot of these seem quite broken to boot. There's probably not a great way to convince people to unpublish their broken apps, but it might be worth reaching out. There are various others (like Fire.onion) that use the Tor network in some way but don't seem to be violating TPI's trademarks.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.globus.vpn
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tornado.browser&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inetric.orxy&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inetric.anonify&hl=en
See also #10549 (moved) from a few years ago. Also vaguely remember Wendy helping file some complaints about App Store apps named Tor, at a tor meeting last year.
Not sure what the process was back then, but recently I've had a tiny bit of luck filing my own (Onion Browser) trademark violation disputes with Apple, via https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstorenotices/ which accepts a batch of links. For each app listed, I've been put on an e-mail thread with Apple legal and the developer of the app in question for them to provide evidence that the complaint is false or an assurance that they will change or remove the app.
It's not perfect, though. All the apps I originally complained about are still on sale, most of them renamed. (Well, in one case, the developer receiving the complaint seems to have blown it off for a few months now and Apple hasn't done anything about it; I actually just followed up on that last week.)
But anyway that's what I know, in case that helps.