AIBRIEF
City Attorney David Chiu sent cease and desist letters alleging the stores 'aided and abetted' the sale of AI deepfake porn apps and profited from in app purchases.
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sent cease-and-desist letters Thursday to Apple and Google demanding they pull 13 "nudify" apps — AI tools that generate nonconsensual fake nude images from ordinary photos — from their stores, alleging the platforms "aided and abetted" the sale of explicit deepfakes.
The letters, first reported by WIRED, accuse Apple and Google of supporting services that create deepfake pornography in violation of California law, and demand the companies "sever" their business relationships with the named developers. Chiu said the two stores have likely "made millions of dollars in fees" through the cut they take on in-app purchases inside these apps.
TechCrunch and Ars Technica confirmed the action. Google spokesperson Dan Jackson said the company has already removed the five Android apps Chiu's office flagged, plus "hundreds" of additional nudify apps for policy violations, and restricted access to others. Apple had not publicly responded at time of reporting.
The action escalates from Chiu's August 2024 lawsuit against 16 deepfake pornography websites to a new target: the app stores that distribute and monetize the same category of tools. Tech Transparency Project research has separately documented that some similar apps were rated as suitable for children in the App Store and Play Store, a pattern the letters cite as evidence that self-policing has failed.