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I know your pain about the D&B issue. That was a huge slap in the face when I saw that. Apple, one of the largest companies in the world, has presented some ran

by jbob2000 9y ago

I know your pain about the D&B issue. That was a huge slap in the face when I saw that. Apple, one of the largest companies in the world, has presented some random company as the face of their Developer portal? "Couldn't be... No way... wait a sec they are that stupid... goddammit". Then, at the end of the day, all it ended up being was a phone call that verified the information I entered on the D&B webpage. Stupid waste of time. I am tempted to think someone on Apple's board partially owns D&B and is forcing it down everyone's throat to make a quick buck, there's no other reason for this kind of experience otherwise.

judah 9y ago
Yeah. That was actually one of the most painful points, and it had nothing to do with the software itself. And to make matters worse, D&B have a client-side validation bug on their site when updating your profile. I actually had to set a JS breakpoint in their code and change .isValid = true. Just so I could update my profile. Unbelievable.
jarsin 9y ago
On top of that DnB sales the shit out of your info. Then if you setup a private llc with a registered agent it allows a way for people(patent trolls and attorneys) to find out who you are etc. Way to focus on privacy Apple!
- techsupporter 9y ago
  And if you make the error of giving D&B valid contact information for you, they will bug the everloving shit out of you until the heat death of the universe. When I was a young pup of a business owner, someone asked me for my DUNS number so, foolishly, I just went to D&B's website and filled out the enticing form there with my cell phone number and company e-mail address. The spam e-mails and phone calls were unceasing. They wouldn't stop calling me with sales pitches, "unique, one-time offers," and blunt statements that (unless I paid money to them) my business would be "delisted" in "just a few days." The assholes also proceeded to sell that information to other companies, so then I started hearing from accounts receivable financing outlets, merchant processors, and the like. Several years later, the phone calls have stopped only because I changed phone numbers, but I still get three or four "your D&B profile is incomplete, call us today!!" e-mails per month to that old address.
curun1r 9y ago
D&B isn't some "random" company. If you've ever been faced with a project that requires you to have a reasonably complete set of information on most businesses in the country, you quickly learn about D&B. Almost every large company is licensing D&B data in some form or another. Cataloging every business in the US isn't an easy problem to get right, even for a company as large as Apple.
- jbob2000 9y ago
  They are just a "random" company. They don't sell any product a regular person would know about. Why was I able to setup a Google Play account without D&B? Amazon let me use EC2 without D&B, SendGrid let me use their mail API without any of this. It's a company that appears out of nowhere, for no reason. That's why it's "random". It's a stupid service that does nothing. If they deny me and I have nefarious, ulterior motives, I'll just register another company. And for what it's worth, my company is Canadian and I'm pretty sure they don't have any ability to verify Canadian companies. The phone call didn't ask me anything about a GST number, business number, or any of that, they just asked if the phone number and address of the company were correct. How do they know if I'm giving them correct information? I could say my company is on the other side of the country, how would they know? The whole process took me a week to get through. I can purchase a goddamn assault rifle and shoot up a school in less time than that, but heavens forbid I put an app on an app store! Good lord won't you think of the children!
  - curun1r 9y ago
    I think you've missed my point. The D&B requirement is a natural consequence of the fact that Apple has decided to require that publishers be an established business. My point wasn't to defend Apple's decision in that matter. You can setup Google Play, use EC2 or send a SendGrid email because those companies haven't made the same decision that Apple has. I was mainly pointing out that D&B is a huge player that a lot of us have heard of. It makes complete sense that, once Apple has made the decision to require an established business, that they'd delegate the validation process to D&B. Just because people who have never thought about solving a problem like Apple decided to solve haven't heard of D&B, doesn't make them some "random" company. They're the market leader in their space and, as someone used their licensed data in a product, it makes complete sense to me that Apple would use their service in support of their business decision.

judah 9y ago

Yeah. That was actually one of the most painful points, and it had nothing to do with the software itself. And to make matters worse, D&B have a client-side validation bug on their site when updating your profile. I actually had to set a JS breakpoint in their code and change .isValid = true. Just so I could update my profile. Unbelievable.

jarsin 9y ago

On top of that DnB sales the shit out of your info. Then if you setup a private llc with a registered agent it allows a way for people(patent trolls and attorneys) to find out who you are etc. Way to focus on privacy Apple!

techsupporter 9y ago
And if you make the error of giving D&B valid contact information for you, they will bug the everloving shit out of you until the heat death of the universe. When I was a young pup of a business owner, someone asked me for my DUNS number so, foolishly, I just went to D&B's website and filled out the enticing form there with my cell phone number and company e-mail address. The spam e-mails and phone calls were unceasing. They wouldn't stop calling me with sales pitches, "unique, one-time offers," and blunt statements that (unless I paid money to them) my business would be "delisted" in "just a few days." The assholes also proceeded to sell that information to other companies, so then I started hearing from accounts receivable financing outlets, merchant processors, and the like. Several years later, the phone calls have stopped only because I changed phone numbers, but I still get three or four "your D&B profile is incomplete, call us today!!" e-mails per month to that old address.

curun1r 9y ago

D&B isn't some "random" company. If you've ever been faced with a project that requires you to have a reasonably complete set of information on most businesses in the country, you quickly learn about D&B. Almost every large company is licensing D&B data in some form or another. Cataloging every business in the US isn't an easy problem to get right, even for a company as large as Apple.

jbob2000 9y ago
They are just a "random" company. They don't sell any product a regular person would know about. Why was I able to setup a Google Play account without D&B? Amazon let me use EC2 without D&B, SendGrid let me use their mail API without any of this. It's a company that appears out of nowhere, for no reason. That's why it's "random". It's a stupid service that does nothing. If they deny me and I have nefarious, ulterior motives, I'll just register another company. And for what it's worth, my company is Canadian and I'm pretty sure they don't have any ability to verify Canadian companies. The phone call didn't ask me anything about a GST number, business number, or any of that, they just asked if the phone number and address of the company were correct. How do they know if I'm giving them correct information? I could say my company is on the other side of the country, how would they know? The whole process took me a week to get through. I can purchase a goddamn assault rifle and shoot up a school in less time than that, but heavens forbid I put an app on an app store! Good lord won't you think of the children!
- curun1r 9y ago
  I think you've missed my point. The D&B requirement is a natural consequence of the fact that Apple has decided to require that publishers be an established business. My point wasn't to defend Apple's decision in that matter. You can setup Google Play, use EC2 or send a SendGrid email because those companies haven't made the same decision that Apple has. I was mainly pointing out that D&B is a huge player that a lot of us have heard of. It makes complete sense that, once Apple has made the decision to require an established business, that they'd delegate the validation process to D&B. Just because people who have never thought about solving a problem like Apple decided to solve haven't heard of D&B, doesn't make them some "random" company. They're the market leader in their space and, as someone used their licensed data in a product, it makes complete sense to me that Apple would use their service in support of their business decision.