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> Since the developer had no idea what it was supposed to have done wrong, it was unable to meet Apple’s appeal requirement of explaining what happened, and how

> Since the developer had no idea what it was supposed to have done wrong, it was unable to meet Apple’s appeal requirement of explaining what happened, and how it has resolved the issue. The appeal was thus denied. If nothing else, Apple should fix this. There is ZERO reason to be anything other than 100% transparent.

CamperBob2 3y ago
There is ZERO reason to be anything other than 100% transparent. The customary rationale, at least around here, goes something like "B...b...b...but if we actually document the rules and tell you what you did wrong, it helps the BAD GUYS!!!11!!"
- ungruntled 3y ago
  I agree. Imagine a legal system where the laws are hidden from citizens and they are only informed of their guilt without meaningful appeal. I feel that any severed contract should require a clear reason with evidence along with an real opportunity for a rebuttal. If that fails then the court system can handle the rest. I used to believe that companies should be allowed to halt business with whomever they please, but this is really just being abused by large companies to avoid the costs of scaling their business.
  - layer8 3y ago
    > Imagine a legal system where the laws are hidden from citizens and they are only informed of their guilt without meaningful appeal. That’s almost the definition of kafkaesque.
  - miohtama 3y ago
    This is how anti-money laundering laws, bank account closures and money freeze work. Any compliance officer, as long as they follow the rulebook, can decide to freeze your account on mere suspicion. How the law is written, they do not need to justify their actions any way, there is no lower threshold for suspicious activity, where a suspicion can be anything. To make matter more complex, compliance staff members, or anyone, are not allowed to tell about this to the customer because of “tip off” risk. In fact it is a criminal act to tip off money launderers. Any freeze can last as long as is needed for “investigation” which does not need to be an investigation by authorities. And oh boy, this gets abused.
- donmcronald 3y ago
  I think the app store monopoly is literally the thing that lets the bad guys participate in the first place. Consider competing app stores. Some of them would be stricter than Apple and do a far better job of curation IMO. For example, apps that exist to trick children into in-app purchases could be forbidden. Or maybe someone would start a store for games that only allows up-front sales, no subscriptions, and no ads. I would gravitate to those stores and it’s where I’d send everyone I know. If others did the same, the “specialty” stores would filter out a huge amount of junk that’s currently on the Apple app store. Maybe the market would even shrink by eliminating the low quality participants. How do you run an app store filled with garbage if there’s suddenly competition? IMO, that’s what Apple and Google are scared of. They want to keep selling large volumes of junk and competition makes that harder.
  - LordDragonfang 3y ago
    > Or maybe someone would start a store for games that only allows up-front sales, no subscriptions, and no ads. [...] [Those] stores would filter out a huge amount of junk that’s currently on the Apple app store. While I'd love to live in a universe where this could actually happen, in reality this is a pipe dream. The reason the app store is full of freemium apps stuffed with ads and microtransactions is because that's overwhelmingly the thing that consumers choose, and what makes the most money. Even desktop, a market that has historically used the up-front model is starting to switch to the "freemium or SaaS" model. Any app store that tried to have such principles would find that they get almost no devs willing to add their apps, and those that did would get barely any sales compared to their less scrupulous peers (rendering the store unable to stay solvent at worst, or having almost no effect on the wider market at best)
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > The reason the app store is full of freemium apps stuffed with ads and microtransactions is because that's overwhelmingly the thing that consumers choose But that's the problem with a generalist store. They're leaving too much money on the table to exclude those things, so they include them, and then the store is full of crap and you can't trust anything. If anyone could start a store then you could have a store operated by a tiny startup with low overhead who only has to pay one or two salaries and can therefore be sustainable with only a tiny fraction of the market, because they have a niche. Which enables the quality store to exist, and serve all of the customers who prefer that.
- 6510 3y ago
  I've been silently thinking that anyone who agrees to those terms is a traitor. Promoters of unethical business practices. Willing slaves? Why do people accept these terms?
sidewndr46 3y ago
Apple business practices are a trade secret. If they disclose them to this developer, they'd lose their presumed advantage in the market. Most large companies explain this somewhere in their terms of service, like Amazon using their own proprietary mechanisms for determining what fraud is.
- donmcronald 3y ago
  > Apple business practices are a trade secret. If they disclose them to this developer, they'd lose their presumed advantage in the market. Their advantage is owning the locked down platform. It’s not a secret.
programmarchy 3y ago
Ignorantia juris non excusat.
- frumper 3y ago
  That implies someone can learn what the rules are. Apple is capricious in the enforcement of those overly vague rules.
  - programmarchy 3y ago
    https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ We don't know all the facts yet, but there's one surefire way to get terminated: > If you attempt to cheat the system (for example, by trying to trick the review process, steal user data, copy another developer’s work, manipulate ratings or App Store discovery) your apps will be removed from the store and you will be expelled from the Apple Developer Program.
    - uhhhhhhh 3y ago
      Considering they engaged legal representation and it sounds like Apple rather than fight it restored their account. So we can probably safely assume it wasn't a glaringly obvious or serious breach of the terms that Apple felt it could defend. I don't imagine Apple would make cost benefit decisions about who can break their terms of service with nothing more than a letter with a legal letterhead. That being said we will know for sure as the plaintiff seems to be bound to make Apple foot the legal bill one way or another. Good for them.
      - BizarroLand 3y ago
        I bet what happened is that one of Apples internal qualia changed and caused them to flag this developer, and no human being with any ability to fix things ever actually took a look at what happened until the lawsuit was filed and Apple was at risk of actually losing money because of it. I hope they get a multiplier on their damages. $725,000 for 4 months of downtime for 7 people doesn't seem like enough.

CamperBob2 3y ago

There is ZERO reason to be anything other than 100% transparent. The customary rationale, at least around here, goes something like "B...b...b...but if we actually document the rules and tell you what you did wrong, it helps the BAD GUYS!!!11!!"

ungruntled 3y ago
I agree. Imagine a legal system where the laws are hidden from citizens and they are only informed of their guilt without meaningful appeal. I feel that any severed contract should require a clear reason with evidence along with an real opportunity for a rebuttal. If that fails then the court system can handle the rest. I used to believe that companies should be allowed to halt business with whomever they please, but this is really just being abused by large companies to avoid the costs of scaling their business.
- layer8 3y ago
  > Imagine a legal system where the laws are hidden from citizens and they are only informed of their guilt without meaningful appeal. That’s almost the definition of kafkaesque.
- miohtama 3y ago
  This is how anti-money laundering laws, bank account closures and money freeze work. Any compliance officer, as long as they follow the rulebook, can decide to freeze your account on mere suspicion. How the law is written, they do not need to justify their actions any way, there is no lower threshold for suspicious activity, where a suspicion can be anything. To make matter more complex, compliance staff members, or anyone, are not allowed to tell about this to the customer because of “tip off” risk. In fact it is a criminal act to tip off money launderers. Any freeze can last as long as is needed for “investigation” which does not need to be an investigation by authorities. And oh boy, this gets abused.
donmcronald 3y ago
I think the app store monopoly is literally the thing that lets the bad guys participate in the first place. Consider competing app stores. Some of them would be stricter than Apple and do a far better job of curation IMO. For example, apps that exist to trick children into in-app purchases could be forbidden. Or maybe someone would start a store for games that only allows up-front sales, no subscriptions, and no ads. I would gravitate to those stores and it’s where I’d send everyone I know. If others did the same, the “specialty” stores would filter out a huge amount of junk that’s currently on the Apple app store. Maybe the market would even shrink by eliminating the low quality participants. How do you run an app store filled with garbage if there’s suddenly competition? IMO, that’s what Apple and Google are scared of. They want to keep selling large volumes of junk and competition makes that harder.
- LordDragonfang 3y ago
  > Or maybe someone would start a store for games that only allows up-front sales, no subscriptions, and no ads. [...] [Those] stores would filter out a huge amount of junk that’s currently on the Apple app store. While I'd love to live in a universe where this could actually happen, in reality this is a pipe dream. The reason the app store is full of freemium apps stuffed with ads and microtransactions is because that's overwhelmingly the thing that consumers choose, and what makes the most money. Even desktop, a market that has historically used the up-front model is starting to switch to the "freemium or SaaS" model. Any app store that tried to have such principles would find that they get almost no devs willing to add their apps, and those that did would get barely any sales compared to their less scrupulous peers (rendering the store unable to stay solvent at worst, or having almost no effect on the wider market at best)
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > The reason the app store is full of freemium apps stuffed with ads and microtransactions is because that's overwhelmingly the thing that consumers choose But that's the problem with a generalist store. They're leaving too much money on the table to exclude those things, so they include them, and then the store is full of crap and you can't trust anything. If anyone could start a store then you could have a store operated by a tiny startup with low overhead who only has to pay one or two salaries and can therefore be sustainable with only a tiny fraction of the market, because they have a niche. Which enables the quality store to exist, and serve all of the customers who prefer that.
6510 3y ago
I've been silently thinking that anyone who agrees to those terms is a traitor. Promoters of unethical business practices. Willing slaves? Why do people accept these terms?

sidewndr46 3y ago

Apple business practices are a trade secret. If they disclose them to this developer, they'd lose their presumed advantage in the market. Most large companies explain this somewhere in their terms of service, like Amazon using their own proprietary mechanisms for determining what fraud is.

donmcronald 3y ago
> Apple business practices are a trade secret. If they disclose them to this developer, they'd lose their presumed advantage in the market. Their advantage is owning the locked down platform. It’s not a secret.

programmarchy 3y ago

Ignorantia juris non excusat.

frumper 3y ago
That implies someone can learn what the rules are. Apple is capricious in the enforcement of those overly vague rules.
- programmarchy 3y ago
  https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ We don't know all the facts yet, but there's one surefire way to get terminated: > If you attempt to cheat the system (for example, by trying to trick the review process, steal user data, copy another developer’s work, manipulate ratings or App Store discovery) your apps will be removed from the store and you will be expelled from the Apple Developer Program.
  - uhhhhhhh 3y ago
    Considering they engaged legal representation and it sounds like Apple rather than fight it restored their account. So we can probably safely assume it wasn't a glaringly obvious or serious breach of the terms that Apple felt it could defend. I don't imagine Apple would make cost benefit decisions about who can break their terms of service with nothing more than a letter with a legal letterhead. That being said we will know for sure as the plaintiff seems to be bound to make Apple foot the legal bill one way or another. Good for them.
    - BizarroLand 3y ago
      I bet what happened is that one of Apples internal qualia changed and caused them to flag this developer, and no human being with any ability to fix things ever actually took a look at what happened until the lawsuit was filed and Apple was at risk of actually losing money because of it. I hope they get a multiplier on their damages. $725,000 for 4 months of downtime for 7 people doesn't seem like enough.