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My app just got removed with no prior warning

javierantonsblog.blogspot.com

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Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#101

Post by lmkg »

collaborative wrote: post #29
px43 wrote: post #20

Are we expected to sympathize with an app that's siphoning off sensitive user data from phones without informing the user? Seems shady. Your main website says: * Data is never kept online * No ads, no affiliate marketers, and no creepy tracking * No phone number is required; No need to share your phone book. Only need an email address (can be masked) But your privacy policy says: * For a better experience while using…

You are not required :) *Data is never kept online -》 this is written next to the E2EE chat, not user accounts. E2EE msg data is not kept online I don't employ any 3rd parties, but included that just in case. It is a word-for-word copy of a sentence in ProtonMail's privacy policy The email address can be masked and the name and surname can be made up or left blank

Can you guarantee that you are handling data the way that ProtonMail does? Do you know how ProtonMail handles its data?

A privacy policy is not just some mumbo-jumbo where you just need to get the words right. The words need to be in correspondence with your actions. Copying someone else's words is not a recipe for success because those words are in accordance with their actions. Even if the privacy policy is compliant for them, the same policy can be non-compliant for you.

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#102

Post by dyeje »

edoceo wrote: post #94
dyeje wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever hired a lawyer to review a privacy policy / ToS? It costs thousands of dollars.

So? Lots of things cost money. It almost sounds like you're advocating for a cheap short-cut. It's bad in code, it's bad in legal dealings

Yes, I am 100% advocating for a cheap shortcut when it makes sense. The vast majority of projects will not find success and do not warrant thousands of dollars of investment when a boilerplate ToS / PP will do. OP did the due diligence of at least reading through and trying to understand theirs. I do not think it is appropriate to grill them about it, hence my comment.

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#103

Post by marcosdumay »

throwaway7721 wrote: post #49
phdelightful wrote: post #7

The author should consider removing their blog from the Google-owned property they are currently using, lest it also get removed with no prior warning.

> The author should consider removing their blog from the Google-owned property they are currently using, lest it also get removed with no prior warning. I don't think Google has a reputation for deleting critical blog posts -- can you reference any stories? Don't get me wrong, there are many reasons to host your own blog. But fear that Google will remove content critical of Google seems pretty far fetched to me. On…

Once in a while there's something about Google removing critical content from their properties here on HN, but well, there is no public data to make-up one's mind, so everybody just assumes their default instance.

Anyway, Google is quite famous for removing all kinds of unrelated things from the people it deemed worth removing something. So, I'd say the odds of the OP's blog being removed is rather high, just not for the reason you assumed it is.

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#104

Post by cptskippy »

fasteddie wrote: post #33
rkachowski wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guarantee bad actors would remove unpermitted functionality right before the review, and put it back after. Outside of a dynamic feature flag setup, this would be trivial to detect as Google and Apple completely control the submission process.

I once used a very dumb feature flag set up to get around a rule an Apple reviewer told us were breaking, just for review period. The supposed rule violation was around for a year and no one had flagged it except for this one reviewer, and they were clearly interpreting the policy wrong. Easier to make a flag to appease then try and work up the management review chain. This wasn't malware or anything like that, but g…

It doesn't seem like there's a single reviewer involved. Whenever we've encountered this behavior with reviewers blocking, simply resubmitting seems to "fix" the issue.

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#105

Post by heavyset_go »

indymike wrote: post #65
rchaud wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The actual question is why Google or Apple's App Store is special? Why can a bank pick and choose who they give loans to but the app walled gardens are in the wrong. I think we probably have the same general idea about this question, but I don't have a really solid answer. Because they have spent untold millions since 2008 buying ads telling consumers that apps are the only way. Flash is dangerous. PWAs are dangero…

> PWAs are dangerous. I've never seen that one from Google, and both iOS, Android and Chrome have pretty good support for PWAs. Source: we discontinued our mobile apps for a PWA. It's been great.

If you want to implement basic functionality like push notifications in your PWA[1], Apple has gone out of their way to not implement them in Safari, and they prevent other browser engines from being distributed on the App Store.

The marketing line and apologetics imply that it's dangerous for PWAs to implement that basic functionality, therefore it's a good thing that PWAs are hobbled on iOS.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26520148

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#106

Post by collaborative »

cartoonworld wrote: post #92
pinkybanana wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should you expect different treatment from Google than Twitter et al.? Well, because you aren't twitter. Expecting google to treat indie dev the same as multibillion dollar corporations would be stupid. World isn't fair place and crying after fairness is often waste of time. This kind of blog post might affect the situation and I think it makes sense to make it in polite way. However my default assumption would…

This comment, and the truth within it, causes me to think of Stallman. Aside discoverability, usability and the messaging problem of selling libre software to Mom, proprietary software and walled gardens will just do this to people. At this time in history there is not really a viable option to access the huge market of app stores with de facto monopolies of the app ecosystem aside from hoping some multinational corp…

Thanks

Overall, I am optimistic about the future. I don't expect developing solo will make financial sense anytime soon, but I imagine the scales have to start turning at some point

The current treatment we get from Apple and Google is beyond belief. We add value to their respective platforms almost for free, and what little we make they take a fee from it. To top it off, Apple even charges us to be able to work for them. And then we get shown "our place" when they do things like what they just did to me

But as a collective, developers have a lot to gain if we get organized

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#107

Post by heavyset_go »

tacker2000 wrote: post #23

People need to realize that these walled garden lock ins are the worst thing ever in our industry. To be honest, I would think twice nowadays if I wanted to do invest my precious life in developing an iOS app and have my income derived from that. If the gatekeeper is unhappy, they can kill my livelihood without any recourse. Same thing is happening in the ecommerce space with Amazon: they can ban your seller account…

> To be honest, I would think twice nowadays if I wanted to do invest my precious life in developing an iOS app and have my income derived from that. If the gatekeeper is unhappy, they can kill my livelihood without any recourse.

Don't worry, Apple has predicted your concerns, and has made sure that PWAs can't implement basic functionality[1] that native apps can. You're practically forced to write native apps for mobile users because of it.

But I am in the same boat. I have several open source macOS apps that the gatekeeper is making difficult to distribute without paying a $100 a year Apple tax. If you don't pay the Apple tax, then macOS treats your app as if it's radioactive, and refuses to run it unless users know how to perform a magic ritual that bypasses Gatekeeper.

There are iOS and Android apps that I'd like to develop, but I'm not going to bother for two reasons. The first is that the App Store and the Play Store have encouraged a race to the bottom for mobile app pricing, and consumers expect apps to either be free or costs a dollar or two. The mobile app store distribution model has broken the paid upgrade model for apps, the same payment model that is alive and well on desktops. The second reason is that Apple or Google are capricious, and my potential mobile app can only exist at their whims. There is also no guarantee that either company won't rip off the apps, either.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26520148

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#108

Post by heavyset_go »

breakfastduck wrote: post #63
tacker2000 wrote: post #23

People need to realize that these walled garden lock ins are the worst thing ever in our industry. To be honest, I would think twice nowadays if I wanted to do invest my precious life in developing an iOS app and have my income derived from that. If the gatekeeper is unhappy, they can kill my livelihood without any recourse. Same thing is happening in the ecommerce space with Amazon: they can ban your seller account…

Ah yes, the famous walled garden of Android. What?

Like Apple, Google also mandates that apps distributed via the Play Store must use Google's payment system[1], and give Google a 15% to 30% cut of revenue:

> Developers charging for apps and downloads from Google Play must use Google Play's billing system as the method of payment.

Google prevents mobile app distribution competitors from competing with the Play Store on feature parity because user installable 3rd party mobile app stores cannot implement automatic upgrades, background installation of apps, or batch installs of apps like the Play Store can.

If the user tries to install an app on their own, they're shown scary warnings and must adjust arcane settings, but if they use Google's Play Store, no scary warnings are shown and no settings need to be adjusted. They're told they're "protected" by Play Protect, but aren't shown scary warnings about the fact that the Play Store is the main distribution method for malware on Android[2] when they go to install apps with it.

That sounds like a walled garden to me.

[1] https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

[2] https://www.zdnet.com/article/play-store-identified-as-main-...

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#109

Post by heavyset_go »

gameswithgo wrote: post #12

A lot of hackernews seems really dedicated to the idea that Google and Apple should decide what software we get to make and sell. Why are people so gung ho to be under the corporate boot like this?

Some are direct, or indirect, shareholders, or stand to own shares in the future.

Re: My app just got removed with no prior warning

#110

Post by heavyset_go »

Consider contacting your state's Attorney General office, and the US Attorney General office. Many states' AG offices have antitrust divisions[1].

The US Dept. of Justice also has an Antitrust Division[2], along with a page that details how and why[3] to get in touch with them:

> Information from the public is vital to the work of the Antitrust Division. Your e-mails, letters, and phone calls could be our first alert to a possible violation of antitrust laws and may provide the initial evidence needed to begin an investigation.

The FTC has the Bureau of Competition[4], as well.

This is a good example of how innovation, competition and small businesses are being stifled by the anticompetitive behavior of the mobile app distribution cartel.

[1] https://www.naag.org/issues/antitrust/

[2] https://www.justice.gov/atr

[3] https://www.justice.gov/atr/report-violations

[4] https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-competi...

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