Istarting with iOS 2 Apple offered developers de applications for iDevices the possibility to test new and important versions of the operating system, conditioning the possibility of testing to the purchase of a developer account. Because iOS is so interesting, attracts so much attention and people do not have free access to beta versions, some websites have thought to start very profitable business giving users access to beta versions of iOS. Websites such as udidactivation.com, udidactivation.us or imzdl.com offered such services, but starting this weekend they were forced to suspend their activity.
While most of our emails bounced, we heard back from one of the site owners (who asked to remain anonymous), who confirmed his hosting provider took down the site after a complaint for copyright infringement by Apple. Similarly, the CEO of Fused tweeted in a reply to Andy Baio that Apple had been "fairly heavy-handed" with DMCA requests to UDID-selling sites hosted on their network.
It all started with an article written by Wired, article in which the businesses made by various people were presented based on the system of testing the beta versions of iOS 6. Practically, to test a beta version of iOS without problems, you need a developer ID or you must have the UDID registered in the account of an Apple developer. The business was based on the sale of the option to register UDIDs on behalf of a developer and it seems that only one website would have earned $75.000 in June alone from this business.
Yes, you read that right, $75.000 was generated by a single website from this business and if you look at the prices shown in the image above, then you notice that we are talking about tens of thousands of people who bought a place . In total, we are most likely talking about several hundred thousand iDevice owners who test iOS 6 without authorization through this system and several hundred thousand others who have installed iOS 6 using this method. For Apple, the problem is very big because users present the functions of iOS on the web before it appears, Apple's competitors find out all the news before the operating system is officially launched, and the closure of these websites was necessary.
Finally, I will tell you that the distribution of beta/modified versions of iOS/OS X violates Apple's TOS and anyone can be sued, and businesses built on the system mentioned above fall under the same provisions. Apple can take legal action against the owners of any websites of this kind, but for now it is content to force the hosting companies to suspend some of them.
