Last week it was discovered that popular third-party Instagram client InstaAgent was found harvesting usernames and passwords. This led to the app being pulled from the iTunes App Store. However while the app might be gone, who’s to say that someone else won’t try and replicate what the app did, or have it return albeit in a different form and name?
While that’s up to Apple to catch, Instagram will be doing a little damage control on their end. The company has announced that they will be tightening the controls of access to their API. According to the company, “Today we are announcing several platform changes to improve people’s control over their content and set up a more sustainable environment built around authentic experiences on the platform.”
To that extent, Instagram will be shutting down the API that grants access to the Instagram feed. The company will also be conducting a review process on apps that wants to use its APIs and this will kick off 3rd December. Apps and developers have until the 1st of June 2016 to comply.
This is a good idea especially since like we said before, sometimes third-party apps might have malicious intent that we aren’t aware of. For example InstaAgent was marketed as an app that allows users to see who viewed your Instagram profile, something that avid Instagrammers are probably very curious about.
Instagram also won’t be the first company to get strict with third-party access. Earlier this year WhatsApp banned users who were found using third-party apps to access its service, and we wouldn’t be surprised if more apps were to approach this the same way in the future.