Apple is cracking down on those viral 'Tea' apps, citing persistent privacy concerns

Remember that Tea app everyone was talking about this summer? Apple has removed it from its iOS App Store.

The Tea app, which lets women post anonymous reviews of men, gained traction in July and stirred a whole lot of debate around privacy and modern dating.

In reaction to Tea — technically named Tea Dating Advice — other copycats made their way onto the app store. TeaOnHer, an alternative version for men, had a viral moment in August.

Both TeaOnHer and Tea were removed by Apple on October 21, according to app analytics firm Appfigures.

A spokesperson for Apple told Business Insider that both apps were removed for not meeting "requirements around content moderation and user privacy, in addition to receiving an excessive number of user complaints and negative reviews — including complaints of minors' personal information being posted in the apps."

The spokesperson added that for Apple, the general approach after discovering a violation is to communicate with the app developer to bring the platform up to standard. In this case, the spokesperson said that Apple "communicated repeatedly" with both developers, but the same issues "nevertheless continued to persist."

Tea Dating Advice did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

In late July, Tea confirmed that the app had experienced a data breach that exposed about 72,000 images, some of which included users' selfies and driver's licenses used for identity verification. The company confirmed that some direct messages were also accessed in the breach. Lawsuits quickly followed.

Scott Cole, the lead attorney on one of the lawsuits, told Business Insider in July that he doesn't think Tea "intended to violate people's rights," but "they were just sloppy."

In August, the TeaOnHer app's "API documentation endpoints were briefly exposed due to a configuration error," founder Xavier Lampkin told Business Insider in an email. TechCrunch reported it had accessed user data. "TechCrunch was the only party to access this during that brief window, and we fixed it immediately upon their notification — within approximately one hour — before anyone else could attempt to access it," he added.

Security researcher Kasra Rahjerdi told Business Insider in August that he was able to view some users' posts via the app's publicly accessible API. That API is still accessible in October, but Lampkin said in an email that this is by design and is a "safety and transparency feature."

Google did not immediately respond to a request on whether Tea and TeaOnHer would be reviewed or removed from the Play Store.

Lampkin, the developer of TeaOnHer, told Business Insider he is "disappointed" in Apple's decision to remove the app, and that the team running the app has implemented "advanced AI content filtering with a 2,000+ word filter system, manual moderation teams, enhanced minor protection systems, and anti-cyberbullying measures."

"We've worked closely with Apple through 20+ rounds of feedback, implementing every safety feature they requested and removing thousands of inappropriate posts daily," Lampkin said.

As of October 22, some users report that the apps are still working if a user has already downloaded them on their iPhone.

Meanwhile, another tea app, Tea On Her & Him—Overheard, is the No. 1 app in the lifestyle category on Apple's App Store.

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