I think having some sort of permission guard for contacts is totally worth doing, but to put Path's sending of your contacts to a remote server in the same category as Apple not asking before allowing something to see your contacts is misleading at best.
1) Put in their detailed rules that this (uploading entire address books) is not allowed.
2) Remove apps from the Apple App Store if they are found to violate this rule.
Apple could also remove such apps from phones after the fact as if they were hostile malware. This may be going too far, but it can be done: http://cybernetnews.com/apple-can-remotely-remove-bad-apps-f... I mention this since by saying "What is Apple supposed to do to prevent.." you may be asking if there's anything Apple can do at all. Yes, of course there is. It's not hard to do something when you own the app store and have control over all the devices.
This is the same reason Facebook apps have to explicitly ask for permission to certain data.
It is Apple's platform, and Apple's app store. They own more of this issue in my eyes. They are the ones that make the rules and review the apps.
Well, that too. But eropple (the parent poster)'s point is that social networking apps are the kind that would typically ask for this permission. Controls on this behaviour before and after the fact can work together.
Now that I think about it, doing the "find your friends" thing without uploading address book data at all would be tricky.