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Apple Responds to Dash Controversy

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Re: Apple Responds to Dash Controversy

#81

Post by jwilcoxson »

mrkbxt wrote: post #78
Mithaldu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here's Kapeli's explanation of what happened: https://blog.kapeli.com/dash-and-apple-my-side-of-the-story !!! it includes a recording of a phone call with Apple !!! Edit: After listening to the first 2 minutes of the call, i can say with absolute confidence that Apple is straight-up blackmailing him. I would love to hear opinions on whether this is something that could be taken to court. Here's the HN submission…

wiretapping apple? yeah, good move.

Call recording != wire tapping. Not that Apple will take kindly to it either way...

Re: Apple Responds to Dash Controversy

#82

Post by [deleted] »

Steko wrote: post #59
thenipper wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love apple products, have for 31 years but the guy is pretty biased towards Apple. He writes some interesting stuff but this article for instance is basically just repeating back whatever their PR flack said.

I seem to remember him slamming Apple Music for weeks on end. Is that how paid shills behave nowadays?

[deleted]

Re: Apple Responds to Dash Controversy

#83

Post by cyberferret »

From 3:52 on the recording with the Apple rep -

"Because we see them as the same entity. If we have accounts that are enrolled in our programme using the same credit card, they are the SAME legal entity. They ARE the same..."

Yikes, because I often put contractor developer subscriptions and other incidental expenses on my company credit card to facilitate turnaround. Now it looks like I can get black banned if one of my contractors on the other side of the world goes rogue?!?

Re: Apple Responds to Dash Controversy

#84

Post by Crosseye_Jack »

Mithaldu wrote: post #62
jwilcoxson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately The Loop isn't much of a news site, more of a controlled Apple leak blog. Dalrymple has gotten to the point of being a complete Apple shill. Edit: Compare the tone of the Loop article to Daring Fireballs: http://daringfireball.net/2016/10/apple_dash_controversy Gruber takes a much more unbiased approach, supported well. The Loop article reads like a statement from the Principal read by your teacher.

And here's Kapeli's explanation of what happened: https://blog.kapeli.com/dash-and-apple-my-side-of-the-story !!! it includes a recording of a phone call with Apple !!! Edit: After listening to the first 2 minutes of the call, i can say with absolute confidence that Apple is straight-up blackmailing him. I would love to hear opinions on whether this is something that could be taken to court. Here's the HN submission…

Listening to the recording it seems that they do want to get the account reinstated but want Kapeli to release a statement on why the account was deactivated.

Which after reading the post and listening to the recording on why Apple hit the account it seems fair after all this has gone public. (Kapeli set up an account for a relative using his CC, gave them some of his old hardware and it's that account that was caught in the review fraud. So in Apples system the two accounts were linked so when they nuked one account, the other went along with it.)

A Blog posting from Kapeli explaining the cause of the account ban and that he has worked with Apple to unlink the two accounts and resolve the situation.

> What Apple has done: on Friday they told me they’d reactivate my account if I’d make a blog post admitting some wrongdoing.

I didn't get from the call that he would have to admit and wrong doing, just explain what had happened and he got hit in the crossfire. Heck if I was in his boat I would end the blog post with "I would like to thank Apple and Phil for working with me to get this sorted and thanks to the community at large for helping to get this resolved." Not that they asked for a thank you but because I can see it from Apple's POV from Kapeli's recent Blog post.

Re: Apple Responds to Dash Controversy

#85

Post by coldcode »

codezero wrote: post #73
kevin_nisbet wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the difficult part is correctly attributing the behavior to the correct party. My knee jerk reaction to this article, is that if I were nefarious and I wanted to get a competitor off the appstore, than I would game the review system on their behalf. I didn't look at it too closely, but I think part of it they said was also creating negative reviews for competitors. Like you said, it depends on the smoking gun…

Yep. I look at it this way: Apple has a team, or teams, dedicated to detecting and stopping fraudulent behavior. People on these teams are very smart and are likely using very sophisticated methods for detecting fraudulent behavior and attributing it, and they are very sensitive to false positives. It's likely better to take no action than to take action, so when you take action, it is only when there is a very stron…

I know of one very large company that paid for downloads and 5 star reviews for years; I doubt Apple would ever do more than ask pretty please. Given how far their rating has fallen recently they might have been asked to stop. But that's a long way from punishment.

Re: Apple Responds to Dash Controversy

#86

Post by ParadoxOryx »

matt4077 wrote: post #79

California is two-party consent, so I hope that phone call starts with the consent of Apple's employee to be recorded. If it's not, it'd be quite a blow to the dev's credibility. (and a felony).

He's based in Romania, where (as best I can tell) one-party consent is legal [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#Roman...

Re: Apple Responds to Dash Controversy

#87

Post by ParadoxOryx »

newsat13 wrote: post #14

Didn't the dash author say that it was inexplicably removed with no warning. Now this press release says otherwise... For people saying this was already in top of app store, well, there was rating manipulation. That's why it was on the top (?)

According to his blog post [1], it sounds like the other account that was engaged in fraudulent activity was notified, but "his" account was not.

[1]: https://blog.kapeli.com/dash-and-apple-my-side-of-the-story

Re: Apple Responds to Dash Controversy

#88

Post by Mithaldu »

Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #84
Mithaldu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here's Kapeli's explanation of what happened: https://blog.kapeli.com/dash-and-apple-my-side-of-the-story !!! it includes a recording of a phone call with Apple !!! Edit: After listening to the first 2 minutes of the call, i can say with absolute confidence that Apple is straight-up blackmailing him. I would love to hear opinions on whether this is something that could be taken to court. Here's the HN submission…

Listening to the recording it seems that they do want to get the account reinstated but want Kapeli to release a statement on why the account was deactivated. Which after reading the post and listening to the recording on why Apple hit the account it seems fair after all this has gone public. (Kapeli set up an account for a relative using his CC, gave them some of his old hardware and it's that account that was caugh…

It doesn't matter what he has to admit or not. The issue lies in this sentence:

> What Apple has done: on Friday they told me they’d reactivate my account if I’d make a blog post admitting some wrongdoing.

The "if" is the problem here. Had Apple said "we'll reinstate your account AND please make a blog post stating xyz" everything would be fine. Making it conditional on the post despite being their mistake is just reprehensible.

Re: Apple Responds to Dash Controversy

#89

Post by matt4077 »

ParadoxOryx wrote: post #86
matt4077 wrote: post #79

California is two-party consent, so I hope that phone call starts with the consent of Apple's employee to be recorded. If it's not, it'd be quite a blow to the dev's credibility. (and a felony).

He's based in Romania, where (as best I can tell) one-party consent is legal [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#Roman...

California doesn't care: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#One-p...) "he California Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that if a caller in a one-party state records a conversation with someone in California, that one-party state caller is subject to the stricter of the laws and must have consent from all callers (cf. Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney Inc., 39 Cal. 4th 95[38]). "

But it does make it less relevant at least practically.

On another note, I tried to find out where he lives, but it's nowhere to be found on the website. I really prefer business websites that give me at least a full name and a city. I don't even know why – I'm not planning to write/stop by/sue – it just feels shady.

(whois data is similarly anonymous – I'm starting to see Apple's point of view)

Re: Apple Responds to Dash Controversy

#90

Post by ParadoxOryx »

ixtli wrote: post #67
robryk wrote: post #60

So, in order to punish the developer of an app Apple takes an action that significantly hurts the users of that app.

I know this doesn't treat the totality of what you're saying but in the past (and I assume it to be the case here) if you paid for the app on the app store it'll be available for download even if it's delisted. This was the case with the game Edge when they got targeted by a trademark troll for their name.

I believe the app stays available in the Purchases section like you said if the developer "unpublishes" the app, but not if the account or app is "terminated" by Apple.

In addition to Dash (which I'm not able to locate in my Purchases tab), I've noticed this to be the case with apps that violate Apple's rules, like those hidden proxies or emulators that have sprung up over the years and were later removed by Apple.

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