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Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31

developer.apple.com

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Re: Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31

#341

Post by boplicity »

ceejayoz wrote: post #57
madars wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard you can change your address to California, which then gives the option to cancel online (due to state law). It is absolutely ridiculous that NYT will happily take your card info online, but require you to be on hold to speak with their "customer care" to cancel. Maybe it is time to use virtual CC's a la privacy.com.

Even better, when I had to cancel my NYT subscription, it said there weren't enough cancellation reps to connect me; "try again later". I went in via the normal support chat, said I wanted to cancel, and was immediately redirected to one. It was an outright lie.

Just dispute the next charge with your card company.

Re: Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31

#342

Post by [deleted] »

d23 wrote: post #292
madars wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard you can change your address to California, which then gives the option to cancel online (due to state law). It is absolutely ridiculous that NYT will happily take your card info online, but require you to be on hold to speak with their "customer care" to cancel. Maybe it is time to use virtual CC's a la privacy.com.

I love privacy.com for this, and I’ll never sign up for a trial or something recurring without using it again. I signed up for a trial for another service which shall remain unnamed, and of course I couldn’t find anywhere on the site to cancel my trial once I wanted to. No problem, I just disabled the card. They’ve probably tried to bill me a dozen times since.

[deleted]

Re: Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31

#343

Post by staunch »

jmull wrote: post #179
staunch wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good system would probably have tiered permissions, something like: 1. No internet apps: store data locally on the device only, no upload or download. 2. Partial internet apps: store data locally, and only download data through an Apple proxy service that hides the user's IP address and any identifying info. 3. Full internet apps: store in the cloud, uploaded/downloaded through an Apple proxy that logs/filters ever…

I don't believe "only download data through an Apple proxy service" does much for user privacy/control of data. A seemingly benign request that appears to simply request information can encode a user's private, sensitive data in the request URL, e.g. I think there's no real distinction between your 2. 3. and 4. There's a place for no internet access at all. It would be good if they had a permission for that.

The entire request can be logged, displayed to advanced users (so they can report it), inspected by Apple's review teams and automated systems. Any app violating the rules, by uploading user data as GET query parameters (for example) could be detected and banned fairly easily.

Re: Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31

#344

Post by eozoon »

matt_heimer wrote: post #276
ajb wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been so bad that there are now gyms which have 'easy cancel' as a selling point. Pure Gym (UK) allows you to cancel by just stopping the payment (they call this "No contract" which is legally illiterate, but whatever). Ironically my bank was suspicious about me when I did it.

That's not 'easy cancel', they've kept difficult cancelation but outsourced the responsibility (at no cost to themselves) to your bank.

They also let you cancel on their app or talking to the counter. The only "catch" is you have to do it at least 4 days ahead of the next payment or it will still go through one more time. I cancelled in person, they asked if I'd consider freezing the membership instead, I said no, they printed me a receipt for the cancellation on the spot and that was it.

Not a big fan of the gym itself, but I can't fault their cancellation process.

Re: Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31

#345

Post by KorematsuFredt »

nightski wrote: post #96
jeroenhd wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why using the blockchain got user data is such a stupid idea. The immutability makes it impossible to redact or remove information, even if that information is encrypted. The same is true foor P2P services where there is no central accounting system. Deleting the account shouldn't be a problem if all the "account" info is stored on the device itself, so if your reviewers aren't completely incompetent I don't…

Hate to break it to you but banks are not deleting your account immediately when you close it. They legally can't.

This is not just banks but (nearly) all companies who deal with payment data will not delete anything related to payment for many many years. In India this use to be 10 years. USA I think it is 5 years.

Re: Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31

#346

Post by judge2020 »

ekkeke wrote: post #305
theelous3 wrote: post #301

Can't imagine choosing to actually involve yourself in the apple ecosystem. Such a weirdly centralised authoritarian sphere of tech, with this creepy thin veil of individualism. Just yuck. All of it. Over and over again we see these antideveloper and anticonsumer moves - which always happen to be set in just the right way to take power and give it to apple under the guise of security or privacy.

Don't get this take, as a user this is the opposite of authoritarian since it gives you more control.

I guess it's authoritarian in the same like that governments enforcing minimum wage or workplace safety are forcing companies to give up autonomy for someone else's benefit - but, of course, that benefit is usually in the name of human rights/not dying on the job/not exploiting workers.

Re: Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31

#347

Post by KorematsuFredt »

anarchogeek wrote: post #27

What about inmutable systems? My app (using scuttlebutt) creates an 'account' but it's located as crypto keys only within the app and apple keychain. So far the apple reviewers refused to believe that it works like. It's open source, they've got the code... but still.... Same is true for anything crypto. The account as it were exists on many devices, but it's not something you as the app creator can manage. I think a…

> deletion of their account from within the app.

Can't the app be reset to a state as if it was just installed ?

Re: Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31

#348

Post by jmknoll »

madars wrote: post #4
gumby wrote: post #2

Wonder if this can be used to unsubscribe from The NY Times?

I heard you can change your address to California, which then gives the option to cancel online (due to state law). It is absolutely ridiculous that NYT will happily take your card info online, but require you to be on hold to speak with their "customer care" to cancel. Maybe it is time to use virtual CC's a la privacy.com.

If you have a credit card with capital one, they provide a browser extension for generating and managing virtual numbers which works like a charm. I’ve been happily using it for all online purchases for the past couple of years. No need to worry about merchants charging for cancelled subscriptions, and if a service has implemented any dark patterns in their unsubscribe process, I just kill the virtual number and let it resolve itself, rather than needing to worry about it.

Re: Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31

#349

Post by mdellavo »

jeroenhd wrote: post #40
anarchogeek wrote: post #27

What about inmutable systems? My app (using scuttlebutt) creates an 'account' but it's located as crypto keys only within the app and apple keychain. So far the apple reviewers refused to believe that it works like. It's open source, they've got the code... but still.... Same is true for anything crypto. The account as it were exists on many devices, but it's not something you as the app creator can manage. I think a…

This is why using the blockchain got user data is such a stupid idea. The immutability makes it impossible to redact or remove information, even if that information is encrypted. The same is true foor P2P services where there is no central accounting system. Deleting the account shouldn't be a problem if all the "account" info is stored on the device itself, so if your reviewers aren't completely incompetent I don't…

if you delete the key - the data is effectively gone

Re: Apple requires account deletion within apps in AppStore starting January 31

#350

Post by bin_bash »

d23 wrote: post #292
madars wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard you can change your address to California, which then gives the option to cancel online (due to state law). It is absolutely ridiculous that NYT will happily take your card info online, but require you to be on hold to speak with their "customer care" to cancel. Maybe it is time to use virtual CC's a la privacy.com.

I love privacy.com for this, and I’ll never sign up for a trial or something recurring without using it again. I signed up for a trial for another service which shall remain unnamed, and of course I couldn’t find anywhere on the site to cancel my trial once I wanted to. No problem, I just disabled the card. They’ve probably tried to bill me a dozen times since.

There are some less scrupulous sites that ban privacy.com cards. Dallas Morning News is a recent one I ran into.
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