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Here is the whole section > 1.3 Kids Category > The Kids Category is a great way for people to easily find apps that are designed for children. If you want to
by joshstrange 7y ago
Here is the whole section
> 1.3 Kids Category
> The Kids Category is a great way for people to easily find apps that are designed for children. If you want to participate in the Kids Category, you should focus on creating a great experience specifically for younger users. These apps must not include links out of the app, purchasing opportunities, or other distractions to kids unless reserved for a designated area behind a parental gate. Keep in mind that once customers expect your app to follow the Kids Category requirements, it will need to continue to meet these guidelines in subsequent updates, even if you decide to deselect the category. Learn more about parental gates.
> Apps in the Kids Category may not include third-party advertising or analytics. You should also pay particular attention to privacy laws around the world relating to the collection of data from children online. Be sure to review the Privacy section of these guidelines for more information.
It appears to only apply to apps in the "Kids Category" so Candy Crush and the like can just say they are "adult"/not-kid-games and continue to be used by kids (while showing them ads and tracking them).
- criddell 7y agoWhy do they ban third-party advertising in particular? It seems like advertising should be allowed as long as it's display only with no outward information flow. Basically ads equivalent OTA television or magazine ads should be allowed.
- m-p-3 7y agoMost likely to limit and control the ability to track this category of users.
- RickS 7y agoPresumably because third party insertion doesn't give the app creators sufficient control over what's shown. This happens all the time. Forbes.com starts serving malware and then cry "we didn't know! the third party guys just put whatever in that box!" So it's not (just) the outward flow of information, but the additional policing burden of a separate inward flow of graphics.
- criddell 7y agoThat makes a lot of sense.
- lozenge 7y agoBecause no ad network is trustworthy. It avoids stories like "developer's labour of love banned over ad network that resold space to ad network that resold space to ad network that put an inappropriate ad".
- scarface74 7y agoMarco Arment created his own ad platform that he curates for the Overcast podcast player partially for that reason and he didn't want random binary blobs shipping with his code.
- astrodust 7y ago"Developer's labor of love taken over by a publisher that got acquired by Evil Corp which allowed anyone to buy ads on their platform."
- mithr 7y agoIn general, I believe it's based on the belief that children in partiular don't yet have the necessary mental tools to be able to properly analyze content -- basically, that they're influenced by media to a much higher degree than adults. > Basically ads equivalent OTA television or magazine ads should be allowed I would guess that proponents of this approach also feel that the contents of TV/magazine ads should be strictly controlled (and probably they are -- I'm not sure what the exact regulations around these are, but I am sure it's much harder to publish a blatantly misleading magazine or TV ad, without consequences to the advertiser or the network/magazine, than it is to publish one online).
- snek 7y agoNot just a belief, it's been studied many times, and it is in fact illegal to have "native" advertising on children's TV shows, at least in the U.S.
- scarface74 7y agoAlmost all cartoons aimed at kids hope to make money on related merchandise. A lot of animated shows were cancelled because while the ratings were good, they skewed toward older teens and adults that didn't buy toys. Two that come to mind are "Young Justice" and the original "Teen Titans". Cartoon Network specifically made "Teen Titans Go!" to skew younger. This isn't a new thing, they killed off most of the Transformers in the 80s movie so they could introduce a new line of characters/toys.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- eli 7y agoThen why are first-party ads allowed?
- pwinnski 7y agoI hope this is step one, and that first-party ads are step two or three.
- lotu 7y agoI'm interpreting this as third party targeting, not that you can't use a third party handle the process of targeting, serving, and billing ads. If they are saying that the game company has to have their own ad platform that basically means only Google and Facebook will be able to release ad supported child targeted games on iOS in the future, which doesn't really make any sense to me.
- pwinnski 7y agoIf they choose to interpret the rule as "no ad-supported child-targeted games on iOS, period," that sounds good to me. I hope they do.
- nkrisc 7y agoHonestly all advertising targeted to children should be banned. It's just not fair. Children don't stand a chance against marketing crafted by adults. You're pitting the mind of a child against that of a trained, professional, adult marketer. The kid is their clay to be molded.
- gameswithgo 7y agoadults don't stand a chance either.
- majewsky 7y ago> Children don't stand a chance against marketing crafted by adults. Nobody can stand a chance against someone well-versed in applied psychology (i.e. a marketer).
- TeMPOraL 7y agoEspecially that it's really you vs. a whole industry of well-paid professionals weaponizing psychological research.
- repolfx 7y agoThe fact that so much advertising barely works is the basis of Google's entire business model. The idea that adverts are all made by masters of psychological manipulation is laughable - most of it is considered successful of it just manages to get the name noticed and remembered at all.
- AJ007 7y agoThis seems to be getting missed, but those kids apps are serving ads for adults. Google has gone way out of their way to make it confusing to block mobile ads (you used to have to add a blacklist domain.) Last year they removed support for that and required advertisers to check an option within the ad campaign. Earlier this year they removed that option. This is a win for advertisers, a loss for publishers and ad networks making money from mis-targeted ads.
- kalleboo 7y ago
- cwkoss 7y agoChildren are not mature enough to understand that advertisements are lies meant to sell products, and can believe the content of the advertisements are true. This is harmful to society, particularly as young children are not capable of making purchasing decisions anyways - this is adversarial brainwashing of the most vulnerable.
- criddell 7y agoThat's true of advertising in general and not third party advertising in particular. Somebody else posted what I think is the correct answer - it removes the possibility of a third party showing inappropriate content to kids.
- lathiat 7y agoIt sounds simple but one of the biggest frustrations is that kids accidentally click the ads which take you out of the app into something else. And constantly get confused. Hence it also requires the apps not to have external links etc.
- lotu 7y agoObviously, but where do you want to go with that? Are you suggesting that because kids can use any app on a phone that all tracking and ads should be banned?
- lukevdp 7y agoNo, looks like it is just the apps targeted at kids.
- Kluny 7y agoiPhones have kids mode that prevents the kid from using any app on the phone. That will probably only deter toddlers, but it's something.
- xoa 7y ago>That will probably only deter toddlers Is this actually true? Jailbreaks haven't been persistent in the face of updates in a long while, so for devices kept up to date it's possible to lock down an iPhone fairly hard. I haven't investigated how parent control compares to full MDM, but the supervision capabilities now in iOS [1] are pretty powerful. For better and for worse of course, that kind of control over user devices, particularly in the context of parents and children, is definitely a double edged sword. But compared to typical computers I don't think it should be lightly dismissed either as something kids can just get around. They aren't open systems. ---- 1: https://www.apple.com/business/resources/docs/Managing_Devices_and_Corporate_Data_on_iOS.pdf https://www.apple.com/business/resources/docs/Managing_Devic...
- Kluny 7y agoI figure older kids can use tactics like social hacking -- ie, whine at mom until she unlocks it.
- colechristensen 7y agoI think where it is going is just fine. The reduction of tracking and ads is a good thing, but that there is going to be a FAANG that is explicitly encouraging this is great news. I would prefer if the market itself forced out tracking and ads. Provide a space for it and that space can compete with everything else and if we're lucky will wildly outcompete the competition. This is the kind of walled garden I want to see. One with high walls and a door.
- lallysingh 7y agoYup, and parents can just install one of the Kids-Category clones of candy crush that will inevitably show up.
- pwinnski 7y agoWhich will include no ads, so: yay! Mission accomplished.
- saagarjha 7y agoNo third-party ads.
- soulofmischief 7y agoSo what services are exempt from this ban? Does Apple offer a first-party advertisement plugin?
- Gaelan 7y agoNot anymore, IIRC. Presumably, app developers would be allowed to sell their own ads in some fashion.
- Intermernet 7y agoIf the app developer has 3rd party advertising clients can they sell those ads? What about "affiliate" ads? Where is the line here?
- move-on-by 7y ago> Keep in mind that once customers expect your app to follow the Kids Category requirements, it will need to continue to meet these guidelines in subsequent updates, even if you decide to deselect the category. I love this. You can't just follow kids guidelines to build up your user-base and then drop it in favor of ads and analytics. Once you follow it, you have to continue to follow it.
- stcredzero 7y agoThis is more proof that apps and games are just another form of media. There are the same issues and conundrums dealing with children's media, as there are for books and television. I wish there would appear a 2019 version of Children's Television Workshop which would produce wonderful media for the children of today. (Is it already happening in some form?)
- dole 7y agoPretty much PBS Kids, "wonderful" being subjective in both directions, like anything.
- move-on-by 7y agoPBS Kids includes 3rd party analytics
- stcredzero 7y agoWhether something is the cultural successor to CTW isn't so much about the brand name. It's about quality, artistic integrity, and mission.
- draw_down 7y agoOk sure, apps fit within the category of “media”. Was there contention on that point?
- Angostura 7y agoBBC CBeebies and CBBC is pretty goodd for kids programmes.
- mc32 7y agoYouTube would be well advised to follow this model for videos intended for kids and anything on YouTube Kids outside of iOS.
- jeffwass 7y agoOn YouTube it’s not just the presence of ads that’s the problem, it’s the type of ads. My kids were watching an obviously kids-themed kids-friendly YouTube video and were shown an ad for Walking Dead, with graphic scary zombies. My 4yo was covering her eyes in fear. Like WTF Google.
- tcfunk 7y agoYeah I actually stopped allowing YouTube and YouTube Kids. YouTube has inappropriate ads, and YouTube Kids content is basically half ads in disguise (just people advertising toys and how they work).
- braythwayt 7y agoWhy can't things be like the Good Old Days when Raganwald was young. We watched Saturday Morning Cartoons, not played with apps. Hmmm... Now that I think about it, Saturday Morning Cartoons were filled with advertising for sugar and violent toys, some of which was clearly labeled as advertising.
- robryan 7y agoGuess the experience varies country to country but at least they generally reserved selling for the ad breaks. Unlike say a paid unboxing video.
- darkpuma 7y agoBy the 80s to 90s, a lot of popular kids shows were glorified ads for toy lines. For instance, 'Transformers' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers.
- jasonhong 7y agoHere is some past work from our research group on a machine learning classifier to identify apps for kids. http://www.cmuchimps.org/publications/identifying_and_analyzing_the_privacy_of_apps_for_kids_2016 http://www.cmuchimps.org/publications/identifying_and_analyz... The title, app description, screenshots, and icon give a lot of signals as to whether an app is targeting kids or not. In particular, icons and screenshots that use a lot of primary colors was a pretty good signal, though app description was the best feature.
- HyperTalk2 7y agoThese apps will be nearly impossible to monetize. No ads, but also basically no in-app purchases either. I doubt many children will see a parental gate and actually do what it asks. They'll just treat it like a dead-end and close the app to find something else to play with. This category will be entirely populated by totally free apps that are created solely for branding purposes or funded by NGOs to push an agenda, with a very small number of apps created by uncompromised people who sincerely want to make the world a better place for children.
- chii 7y ago> nearly impossible to monetize. No ads, but also basically no in-app purchases either. How about a paid app? Charge what it costs to create once. The old model worked fine before the advent of IAP and adware. If the app is good, people would pay for it. Esp. if now there's a specific category for discovery!
- Mirioron 7y agoThere's a disconnect between who plays/uses the app and who pays. How do you know that it's worth the money if you're not going to play it?