7 ms·

There's another angle to the App Store scam: Family Sharing. Most people don't know this but the "Parent" (read:credit card holder) of a family sharing account

by mthoms 5y ago

There's another angle to the App Store scam: Family Sharing. Most people don't know this but the "Parent" (read:credit card holder) of a family sharing account can't see, let alone cancel, any subscriptions a minor on the account has purchased. Let that sink in for a second. Apple will happily charge the parents' credit card a weekly recurring fee but there is nowhere in their interface (on device nor on the web) where the parent can even see that subscription.[0] Apple expects the child to go into their interface and cancel the recurring subscription. Something many (most?) adults find confusing. In my case, the child just deleted the App when the trial was over. Which is of course perfectly logical thinking. No bueno. So if the child is away at school (as in my case), or the phone gets left at a friend's house, or worse... stolen. The only way to get it cancelled is to call them. There's more to this story, including details on how the built in parental controls are intentionally crippled (IMHO) but I've got to run. In summary: The entire "Family Sharing" system is built to rip off people while still maintaining plausible deniability. [0] A senior Apple rep told me this is for privacy reasons. But two things: the minor should have no expectation of privacy when spending their parents money (how is that a good thing?). And secondly, Apple does email a receipt for the subscription to the card holder... so the privacy excuse was pure bullshit. In my case I missed the email because I have more than 6 or 7 recurring Apple subscriptions. I do take partial blame because of that. But I've still not been given a good reason why a parent can't easily cancel a childs subscription.

donmcronald 5y ago
The whole scheme is such an obvious dark pattern. You have 2 options: 1. About 5 prompts every time a child wants to "buy" something including free stuff. 2. An absolute free for all where a child can have unlimited spend. Competing app stores would have a MUCH better family sharing setup with proper budgets and controls. Microsoft gets the money end of it right, but sucks at the actual app sharing. Google can't even make their gift cards work properly. We need app store competition.
- GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
  Then you get to learn 5 different systems with dark patterns
  - danbmil99 5y ago
    Like watching TV over internet? dozens of players with different ff/rew/pause/resume/seek behavior
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Probably more like the GDPR-non-compliance popups which make it not merely unnecessarily hard to say “no” but which also do it differently in each case so you can’t even learn a pattern for how to quickly say no to everything.
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  Where would competing app stores get funds to build all these features? And why wouldn't half of them be scams?
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    Because I as the parent can choose the kid-friendly app store that allows managing subscriptions in a sane manner. At least until Apple inevitably sherlocks the feature, which they will, because competition forces all participants to improve.
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      It's far more likely you will end up with alternatives competing by lowering their margins until the point that they need to employ dark patterns to stay viable. If you think the App Store is bad now I think you will be in for a surprise once it is opened out.
      - ben_w 5y ago
        While I agree that most alternative stores will be awful, their mere existence can force Apple to do stuff they don’t currently do. That said, I expect that a month after the alt stores open, many of the same American lawmakers currently complaining about Apple will suddenly start complaining about how non-American stores don’t give so much as a wet fart what American lawmakers think. (The non-American lawmakers also complaining about Apple are likely to be in favour of this, given at worst the alt store is doing the status quo while at best they're now a local business).
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        Why? Apple has had no problem moderating it up until this point, if their service is as great as it claims then developers will have no problem forking over 30% of their annual profits for the incredible developer experience the App Store provides! Apple is offering a superior product here, right?
  - Loic 5y ago
smoldesu 5y ago
Receive a photo that an AI thinks is porn? Your parents will now instantly receive a notification on their iPhone, for safety reasons. Spend $500 on in-app-purchases? Your parents aren't even allowed to know, since you're such a vulnerable little person. Privacy is a human right, you know! Leave it to Apple to find the most ironic contradictions.
- jolux 5y ago
  > Your parents will now instantly receive a notification on their iPhone, for safety reasons. Only if you choose to view it, from a prompt that tells you it will notify them if you do.
  - jackson1442 5y ago
    And if you're under 13, have an Apple ID that says you're under 13 in a family group with your parents, and your parents have enabled that feature.
- dang 5y ago
  Would you please stop posting this sort of low-information, snarky/ranty comment? You've been doing it a lot, unfortunately, and it's not within either the spirit or the letter of the rules here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
73r7fudhdjduru 5y ago
Being competent and not giving your child access to your credit card or devices you can't also access seems like it solves this problem. I don't understand how it's 2021 but we're still giving parents a pass on being illiterate.
- mthoms 5y ago
  The child has a learning disability and, as I already mentioned, is away at a (special) school for much of a year. Thus - I don't have immediate access to the phone. But thanks for your thoughtful and measured contribution.
dumpsterdiver 5y ago
> Apple does email a receipt for the subscription to the card holder... so the privacy excuse was pure bullshit. I called Apple support today for an unrelated issue and verified that what you say is true. That truly is egregious that they're hiding that information, and you have to notice it via your bank statement. At the very least the primary account holder should be able to see that an unspecified member of their family account has a subscription to an unspecified service, and have the ability to summarily cancel it. It's not unheard of to imagine that even with the "Ask me first" feature enabled to allow members to make purchases, you might accidentally click yes while trying to click something else - I've unintentionally answered incoming calls that way. Granted, there's likely a confirmation prompt, but between having your fingers fly across the screen from muscle memory, and having FaceID enabled - it seems like even with a confirmation prompt it would still be possible to inadvertently approve purchases.
fouc 5y ago
That does suck. What about canceling the credit card?
- dylan604 5y ago
  Depends on how sophisticated the company one is subscribed is. Let's take Netflix for an example. As a service to you to not miss out and get your account suspended, they will assume you have "forgotten" to update the service with your new card information. Surely, you wouldn't get a new card and not update them, right? So, again, as a service for you, they will contact card issuers to see if you have a new number and automatically start billing that new card. All without you having to lift a finger.
  - alisonkisk 5y ago
    To be fair, Netflix will also stop charging you if you, you know, click the unsubscribe button in the app.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      I wasn't really trying to highlight Netflix as a company, but that there's a service that can be used to "ensure" that people stay subscribed. However, I don't give damn who you are. If I did not personally provide you my credit card information, I did not give you permission to use it. If I did not remember to update my info, then shut down my account and make it obvious. What ever this service is, it needs to go away.
      - qzw 5y ago
        The only service I can think of where I'd want them not to cancel my account is a domain registrar.
        dylan604 5y ago
        Yeah, so cancel was the wrong word. Suspend. Domain registars send out many many notices that domains are expiring. Even when one has expired, there is a definite grace period. I have benefittted from that grace period on occassions. To outright cancel an account would be bad.
alisonkisk 5y ago
Apple just launched a feature where parents can see their kids conversations, but not see their kids spending of parents' money.
- ribosometronome 5y ago
  No, they didn't. They're going to be launching a feature that will send an alert to parents if the kid opens and views or sends an image determined to be sexual by ML. There's no indication it will let you see any part of the conversation, much less the entirety.
ramshanker 5y ago
This problem is almost solved by UPI payment service in India. All payments need manual approval. Credit/Debit card not required to be added here. Apple was forced to add UPI payment because that’s what people use here. I will trade the payment safety anytime over whatever convenience credit cards offer for auto debit recurring transactions.
- mthoms 5y ago
  Interesting. How do you manual approve App Store charges?
  - addicted 5y ago
    Every purchase incurred on a credit card will only go through if you approve it via a call or text message sent when the purchase is incurred. Now, I’m not actually sure this works for the Apple case because I believe Apple bundles all your purchases and charges your credit card once a day or once a month?
  - teitoklien 5y ago
    If the store uses upi , your bank app pops you up with a notification and the transaction only goes through if you click yes , It also auto generates an invoice for you to download while youre at it (depends on the bank tho)
fossuser 5y ago
Don’t they have ask to buy as a setting? You can have it ask you prior to child accounts purchasing stuff.
- mthoms 5y ago
  Good question - this was one of the details I left out of my comment because I ran out of time... The feature called (as you say) "Ask to buy" is not what the name implies. It's actually "Ask to download anything, including free stuff". You end up turning it off after being interrupted 5 times a day to approve free stuff. Many are free games, some are even apps needed for school (the Apps needed for school are sometimes time sensitive - if I don't approve it within a few hours it can be a problem). This is what I alluded to with the "plausible deniability" comment. Apple can say we have an "Ask to buy" feature but they cripple[0] the feature so as to make most parents turn it off. [0] I'll leave it up to the reader to decide whether this is intentional or not. Based on the dark patterns present, I personally think it's 100% intentional. I wrote to Tim about it. Never heard back. Wasn't surprised.
  - fossuser 5y ago
    Ah yeah I think the ask for credentials for free downloads is similarly annoying. There should definitely be something just for stuff that charges your card.
  - banana_giraffe 5y ago
    Even ignoring the parental side of things: I've never quite understood why the flow to download a free app triggers the same UI as the purchase UI.
    - elliekelly 5y ago
      I always assumed it’s about having you “accept” something for legal purposes?
      - vxNsr 5y ago
btown 5y ago
If Apple was serious about preserving privacy while promoting healthy spending habits for minors, they'd let parents set a budget that can't be exceeded, make this visible at purchase time to the minor, give the minor the ability to ask permission for a specific purchase that exceeds the budget, and keep all other purchase information private. But of course this would cut drastically into their revenue. I'm actually somewhat surprised that legislators haven't tried to regulate this. The cynical part of me says that if legislators don't have kids or grandkids who are spending too much of their money on app stores, they either don't have kids or are too wealthy to care, either of which would make them grossly out of touch with their constituents...
ksec 5y ago
This Family Sharing problem has been known for what? 4+ years if not longer? That is precisely why all the games are Ad based with subscription option. These Ad based Games offer 1 min of Game play and 30sec of Ads and . These Ads are also showing games the kids might like, so they go to download this new game which Apple gets to come up with new download or installation milestone. The new games are also ad based with subscription, showing ads that..... until you hit subscription. And the great things about these Subscription is that are so cheap, so they can easily pile up without getting noticed. And this example is only the tip of the iceberg. All these changes came after they announced their Services Strategy in 2015. It is literally impossible to convince Apple Fans there are any wrong doing of Apple. Go to Macrumors or 9to5 comments you will see Apple Apologist working there 24/7. But A lot of people are starting to question, if Apple were really doing what they said were doing. And I mean if you are starting to doubt, you may finally understand why I have been saying Apple reeks of hypocrisy for the past few years. ( I have comparatively little to no problem with Steve Jobs's Apple )

by mthoms 5y ago

donmcronald 5y ago

The whole scheme is such an obvious dark pattern. You have 2 options: 1. About 5 prompts every time a child wants to "buy" something including free stuff. 2. An absolute free for all where a child can have unlimited spend. Competing app stores would have a MUCH better family sharing setup with proper budgets and controls. Microsoft gets the money end of it right, but sucks at the actual app sharing. Google can't even make their gift cards work properly. We need app store competition.

GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
Then you get to learn 5 different systems with dark patterns
- danbmil99 5y ago
  Like watching TV over internet? dozens of players with different ff/rew/pause/resume/seek behavior
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Probably more like the GDPR-non-compliance popups which make it not merely unnecessarily hard to say “no” but which also do it differently in each case so you can’t even learn a pattern for how to quickly say no to everything.
alisonkisk 5y ago
Where would competing app stores get funds to build all these features? And why wouldn't half of them be scams?
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  Because I as the parent can choose the kid-friendly app store that allows managing subscriptions in a sane manner. At least until Apple inevitably sherlocks the feature, which they will, because competition forces all participants to improve.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    It's far more likely you will end up with alternatives competing by lowering their margins until the point that they need to employ dark patterns to stay viable. If you think the App Store is bad now I think you will be in for a surprise once it is opened out.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      While I agree that most alternative stores will be awful, their mere existence can force Apple to do stuff they don’t currently do. That said, I expect that a month after the alt stores open, many of the same American lawmakers currently complaining about Apple will suddenly start complaining about how non-American stores don’t give so much as a wet fart what American lawmakers think. (The non-American lawmakers also complaining about Apple are likely to be in favour of this, given at worst the alt store is doing the status quo while at best they're now a local business).
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Why? Apple has had no problem moderating it up until this point, if their service is as great as it claims then developers will have no problem forking over 30% of their annual profits for the incredible developer experience the App Store provides! Apple is offering a superior product here, right?
- Loic 5y ago

smoldesu 5y ago

Receive a photo that an AI thinks is porn? Your parents will now instantly receive a notification on their iPhone, for safety reasons. Spend $500 on in-app-purchases? Your parents aren't even allowed to know, since you're such a vulnerable little person. Privacy is a human right, you know! Leave it to Apple to find the most ironic contradictions.

jolux 5y ago
> Your parents will now instantly receive a notification on their iPhone, for safety reasons. Only if you choose to view it, from a prompt that tells you it will notify them if you do.
- jackson1442 5y ago
  And if you're under 13, have an Apple ID that says you're under 13 in a family group with your parents, and your parents have enabled that feature.
dang 5y ago
Would you please stop posting this sort of low-information, snarky/ranty comment? You've been doing it a lot, unfortunately, and it's not within either the spirit or the letter of the rules here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

73r7fudhdjduru 5y ago

Being competent and not giving your child access to your credit card or devices you can't also access seems like it solves this problem. I don't understand how it's 2021 but we're still giving parents a pass on being illiterate.

mthoms 5y ago
The child has a learning disability and, as I already mentioned, is away at a (special) school for much of a year. Thus - I don't have immediate access to the phone. But thanks for your thoughtful and measured contribution.

dumpsterdiver 5y ago

> Apple does email a receipt for the subscription to the card holder... so the privacy excuse was pure bullshit. I called Apple support today for an unrelated issue and verified that what you say is true. That truly is egregious that they're hiding that information, and you have to notice it via your bank statement. At the very least the primary account holder should be able to see that an unspecified member of their family account has a subscription to an unspecified service, and have the ability to summarily cancel it. It's not unheard of to imagine that even with the "Ask me first" feature enabled to allow members to make purchases, you might accidentally click yes while trying to click something else - I've unintentionally answered incoming calls that way. Granted, there's likely a confirmation prompt, but between having your fingers fly across the screen from muscle memory, and having FaceID enabled - it seems like even with a confirmation prompt it would still be possible to inadvertently approve purchases.

fouc 5y ago

That does suck. What about canceling the credit card?

dylan604 5y ago
Depends on how sophisticated the company one is subscribed is. Let's take Netflix for an example. As a service to you to not miss out and get your account suspended, they will assume you have "forgotten" to update the service with your new card information. Surely, you wouldn't get a new card and not update them, right? So, again, as a service for you, they will contact card issuers to see if you have a new number and automatically start billing that new card. All without you having to lift a finger.
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  To be fair, Netflix will also stop charging you if you, you know, click the unsubscribe button in the app.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I wasn't really trying to highlight Netflix as a company, but that there's a service that can be used to "ensure" that people stay subscribed. However, I don't give damn who you are. If I did not personally provide you my credit card information, I did not give you permission to use it. If I did not remember to update my info, then shut down my account and make it obvious. What ever this service is, it needs to go away.
    - qzw 5y ago
      The only service I can think of where I'd want them not to cancel my account is a domain registrar.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        Yeah, so cancel was the wrong word. Suspend. Domain registars send out many many notices that domains are expiring. Even when one has expired, there is a definite grace period. I have benefittted from that grace period on occassions. To outright cancel an account would be bad.

alisonkisk 5y ago

Apple just launched a feature where parents can see their kids conversations, but not see their kids spending of parents' money.

ribosometronome 5y ago
No, they didn't. They're going to be launching a feature that will send an alert to parents if the kid opens and views or sends an image determined to be sexual by ML. There's no indication it will let you see any part of the conversation, much less the entirety.

ramshanker 5y ago

This problem is almost solved by UPI payment service in India. All payments need manual approval. Credit/Debit card not required to be added here. Apple was forced to add UPI payment because that’s what people use here. I will trade the payment safety anytime over whatever convenience credit cards offer for auto debit recurring transactions.

mthoms 5y ago
Interesting. How do you manual approve App Store charges?
- addicted 5y ago
  Every purchase incurred on a credit card will only go through if you approve it via a call or text message sent when the purchase is incurred. Now, I’m not actually sure this works for the Apple case because I believe Apple bundles all your purchases and charges your credit card once a day or once a month?
- teitoklien 5y ago
  If the store uses upi , your bank app pops you up with a notification and the transaction only goes through if you click yes , It also auto generates an invoice for you to download while youre at it (depends on the bank tho)

fossuser 5y ago

Don’t they have ask to buy as a setting? You can have it ask you prior to child accounts purchasing stuff.

mthoms 5y ago
Good question - this was one of the details I left out of my comment because I ran out of time... The feature called (as you say) "Ask to buy" is not what the name implies. It's actually "Ask to download anything, including free stuff". You end up turning it off after being interrupted 5 times a day to approve free stuff. Many are free games, some are even apps needed for school (the Apps needed for school are sometimes time sensitive - if I don't approve it within a few hours it can be a problem). This is what I alluded to with the "plausible deniability" comment. Apple can say we have an "Ask to buy" feature but they cripple[0] the feature so as to make most parents turn it off. [0] I'll leave it up to the reader to decide whether this is intentional or not. Based on the dark patterns present, I personally think it's 100% intentional. I wrote to Tim about it. Never heard back. Wasn't surprised.
- fossuser 5y ago
  Ah yeah I think the ask for credentials for free downloads is similarly annoying. There should definitely be something just for stuff that charges your card.
- banana_giraffe 5y ago
  Even ignoring the parental side of things: I've never quite understood why the flow to download a free app triggers the same UI as the purchase UI.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    I always assumed it’s about having you “accept” something for legal purposes?
    - vxNsr 5y ago

btown 5y ago

If Apple was serious about preserving privacy while promoting healthy spending habits for minors, they'd let parents set a budget that can't be exceeded, make this visible at purchase time to the minor, give the minor the ability to ask permission for a specific purchase that exceeds the budget, and keep all other purchase information private. But of course this would cut drastically into their revenue. I'm actually somewhat surprised that legislators haven't tried to regulate this. The cynical part of me says that if legislators don't have kids or grandkids who are spending too much of their money on app stores, they either don't have kids or are too wealthy to care, either of which would make them grossly out of touch with their constituents...

ksec 5y ago

This Family Sharing problem has been known for what? 4+ years if not longer? That is precisely why all the games are Ad based with subscription option. These Ad based Games offer 1 min of Game play and 30sec of Ads and . These Ads are also showing games the kids might like, so they go to download this new game which Apple gets to come up with new download or installation milestone. The new games are also ad based with subscription, showing ads that..... until you hit subscription. And the great things about these Subscription is that are so cheap, so they can easily pile up without getting noticed. And this example is only the tip of the iceberg. All these changes came after they announced their Services Strategy in 2015. It is literally impossible to convince Apple Fans there are any wrong doing of Apple. Go to Macrumors or 9to5 comments you will see Apple Apologist working there 24/7. But A lot of people are starting to question, if Apple were really doing what they said were doing. And I mean if you are starting to doubt, you may finally understand why I have been saying Apple reeks of hypocrisy for the past few years. ( I have comparatively little to no problem with Steve Jobs's Apple )