If you've ever used a third-party app to control your Facebook, Twitter or any other social media platform, then it's quite likely you've used an API. The application program interface, or API, is a key piece of data that allows companies to create products that will improve your interaction with the websites that you love. However, recent security threats have caused many sites to pull their APIs from public access.
Encrypted chat app WhatsApp and temporary photo app Snapchat both recently announced that they were pulling their APIs.
Snapchat recently asked Microsoft to remove any third-party apps that had access to Snapchat. According to Pandodaily, the removal occurred after thousands of photos from Snapchat were saved and downloaded by third-party app SnapSaved. This choice to save all the files without the photo owners' consent clashed with Snapchat's dedication to making sure users didn't have to worry about someone saving their photos without their consent.
WhatsApp did something similar on Wednesday. According to a Google+ post, developers of WhatsApp+ (an Android-based app that added additional functionality to WhatsApp) received a cease-and-desist order from Whatsapp owner Facebook. Anyone who used WhatsApp+ also received a 24-hour ban from WhatsApp.
"Third parties that have built unauthorized functionality on top of WhatsApp create issues for people including lost messages," WhatsApp told Mashable. "This goes against the experience we work hard to give people and we won't let it continue. Starting today, we are taking aggressive action against unauthorized apps and alerting the people who use them."
This isn't the first time companies have done this. Twitter closed its API in 2012 after discovering problems with the Tweetbot Alpha. Twitter declared that any app that was functionally similar to the official Twitter app had to be closed down. This killed most Twitter-powered apps and weakened the social network's app ecosystem. Most critics thought that the move was poor since it was just Twitter's way of getting more people to use the official Twitter app.
