Apple has locked me out of my developer account

Whether or not the content is interesting is completely irrelevant.

If the journalist signs a Terms of Service agreement and then violates the agreement they are breaking the contract and Apple has every right to end the Service. If he legally acquired and published info without signing a TOS then the info is fair game. Retaliation would be suing him for the disclosures. Ending the Service is just standard operating procedure.

I enjoy the writing and he seems like a really nice and capable guy. Nonetheless, he promised not to do something and then appears to have done it anyway. We don't yet know if his account is suspended because of this, but if so, it happened due to his own choices.

Also, the reason his content is widely read and is interesting is not because he has some unique ability. There are lots of people who could do the kind of system/app spelunking he does. However, other people follow the TOS associated with the access. It would appear that he has chosen to violate the agreements and that has enabled him to produce content that is unique. Frankly, Apple has been very patient so far.

I feel for him on a personal level, but if he violated the TOS then there is no controversy here. Every developer access agreement I have ever seen from many different companies has clear TOS relating to non-disclosure of proprietary info.

Another interesting angle is that if he is violating the TOS, he may have also jeopardized his employer's access to Apple developer programs.

On the other hand, maybe this is all just a snafu...

Sorry, I refuse to be bullied into buying exorbitantly overpriced shit hardware.

I think people are a little frustrated with your replies in this thread because it seems like you're pushing back hard against even relatively mild criticisms of Apple's behavior like "they should at least be clear about the reasons for the suspension." Assuming Rambo's describing what's happened here correctly, Apple isn't even being clear about whether the account is suspended at all, they're just saying "we'll look into it and get back to you," and then failing to do so.

When you had to take a moderation action against someone, you didn't just lock them out of their account with no explanation as to why and ignore any request for clarification, right?

> Is it a vanishingly small number or is it one that you can't honestly track because you're not actually investigating on a per case basis?

The problem is this data is not tracked. Internally, an organization would say: Moderation was performed > Moderation was Investigated > $outcome, being either: Correct/Incorrect. But because of the he said/she said factor, if it was wrong, the person is reinstated, and they wouldn't be complaining about it. If it wasn't, that person would then, as is the case of the OP, be posting on their own blog or whatever complaining about it. The point being: those complaining about being kicked out are a self-selected group of people who were kicked out who believe Apple was incorrect in their decision. The others aren't talking about it because it's already resolved for them.

Who's right? Who knows. Even the GP comment we're all replying to conveys information, relevant, that the poster of the blog post decided to omit from their recounting of the events. Information which would prove Apple's actions correct. I don't know if Apple was right to ban him, but the fact that the first reply makes mention of documented instances of the developer breaking the ToS is interesting, since said developer made no mention of it themselves. It certainly dings their credibility as far as I'm concerned.

> The alternative is to... maybe not be super unfriendly and unhelpful when your account gets terminated? Maybe issue a warning first stating when and how you're violating a rule so you have a chance to correct it?

You do. Failing an app review, for example, does not lead to account termination. You're given explicit notes on what's wrong with the app, what you're doing that Apple doesn't like, and the only "consequence" of that is that your new code doesn't go live yet. You're given exactly that: time to fix it.

In the case of the GP though, if we assume this is correct and this person was using their developer access to publish information about upcoming Apple products ahead of their release curve, which is indeed against the ToS, then there's no way to have them "fix" that. They're abusing their privileged access in a way Apple doesn't want. Therefore, revoking that access is the logical next step.

Basically my thinking is this: If you agree to be bound by terms of use, and then do one of the things explicitly disallowed in those terms of use, you forfeit your right to whatever agreeing to those terms of use enabled you to do: in this case, developer account access.

So we're going to break the law instead, great defense for how Apple is evil when you are, in fact, pirating their software. Haha.....