Developer account removed by Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#181

Post by san_dimitri » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #40

Manuel_D wrote: post #8

If the fake reviews are indeed the reason why the apps were taken off the store, that does strike me as an inappropriate action. Take down the reviews, yes. But closing the developer account creates a big opportunity to eliminate competition by buying fake reviews for your competitors. There's also nothing developers can do to prevent this since they can't curate or reject reviews from what I know. That said, other c…

This was talked about by Phillip Shoemaker (head of App Store Review 2009-2016) in this talk[0], where some developers figured out that if they hired marketing firms to commit review fraud on a competitor’s app, their competitor would get terminated because there’s no clear way to actually attribute the fraud to the developer. I guess the App Store fraud prevention team hasn’t necessarily found a good solution yet. 0…

Hmm interesting. I wonder what happen if there were a lot of fake reviews on Apple’s own apps. I am sure this policy would not apply to themselves.

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#182

Post by burnte » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

adastra22 wrote: post #64

Manuel_D wrote: post #8

If the fake reviews are indeed the reason why the apps were taken off the store, that does strike me as an inappropriate action. Take down the reviews, yes. But closing the developer account creates a big opportunity to eliminate competition by buying fake reviews for your competitors. There's also nothing developers can do to prevent this since they can't curate or reject reviews from what I know. That said, other c…

> In that scenario, Apple should have been more specific in their communications. In that scenario Apple is highly constrained in what they can say.

By who? If it's by internal rules, they are not constrained, they choose not to share info.

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#183

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 6:57 PM UTC

RagnarD wrote: post #122

I developed several iPhone apps. While I didn't run into something as serious as this, I have a hard time seeing how any company could invest serious money into developing an app that Apple - in its sole judgement - can capriciously reject. I am greatly in favor of competing app stores and the unequivocal ability to "sideload" any apps (at the user's risk of course.) I suspect Apple themselves don't realize that thei…

[deleted]

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#184

Post by Brian_K_White » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 6:58 PM UTC

rafram wrote: post #99

irrational wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like the modus operandi of so many companies. Google can’t figure out how to make money without ads, so they punish people (blocking ad blockers on chrome and not allowing access to YouTube if using an ad blocker) because of their own failure.

> Google can’t figure out how to make money without ads They can and they have. YouTube Premium exists! You can pay for it! The two business models that are feasible for YouTube are (1) free and you have to see ads and (2) paid and you don’t have to see ads. They offer both. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect to be allowed to pick (1) but opt out of the ad side of the bargain. Their ad-blocking shenanigans are o…

I pay for pemium and youtube still sucks. I still see ads in the form of embedded and in the form of other shit on the page, and now my home screen is blank, and I only get to use my account about 1/2 the time anyway because in the real world I'm often watching on someone else's device, and I have no option to disable shorts, and I'm subject to their capricious copyright and censoring bs which both directly removes content and indirectly cows all the creators into self censoring.

The problems with youtube are not the victims fault. It's fucking garbage.

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#185

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

moralestapia wrote: post #171

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that is not money laundering I’m willingly jumping into a hornet’s nest, but out of genuine curiosity, why?

Money laundering is not "making money through illicit means" as many people confuse it with. Money laundering is the act of concealing that money, so that it becomes clean money in the face of any curious observer. They often go hand in hand but they are different things. An example, you have 1M cash but you need it in your bank account, because you want to buy a house or a car or groceries. If you just go to your ba…

> Money laundering is not "making money through illicit means"

This is correct.

> Money laundering is the act of concealing that money, so that it becomes clean money in the face of any curious observer

This is the middle step, layering. Before that is placement, introducing the funds into the financial system; after, integration, withdrawing clean money.

Here, stealing the credit cards is the original crime. That per se is not money laundering. Running them is analogous to placement. Mixing those stolen numbers with people who legitimately forgot to cancel their subscriptions is layering. Getting a bank deposit from Apple: integration. (Banks won't question deposits from Apple.) That process, altogether, is absolutely money laundering.

The stolen credit cards are actually irrelevant. If the developer's dirty sources need to layer their funds, they can subscribe to the app and have it laundered for a meagre 30% haircut. Do that across a number of assumed identities and it's a decent cottage money-laundering operation.

> it almost always involves putting cash into a bank account

It very rarely does anymore. Certainly not at scale.

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#186

Post by KennyBlanken » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #40

Manuel_D wrote: post #8

If the fake reviews are indeed the reason why the apps were taken off the store, that does strike me as an inappropriate action. Take down the reviews, yes. But closing the developer account creates a big opportunity to eliminate competition by buying fake reviews for your competitors. There's also nothing developers can do to prevent this since they can't curate or reject reviews from what I know. That said, other c…

This was talked about by Phillip Shoemaker (head of App Store Review 2009-2016) in this talk[0], where some developers figured out that if they hired marketing firms to commit review fraud on a competitor’s app, their competitor would get terminated because there’s no clear way to actually attribute the fraud to the developer. I guess the App Store fraud prevention team hasn’t necessarily found a good solution yet. 0…

It's apparently common on Twitch for scammers to try and blackmail streamers by threatening to followbot them.

Not every streamer knows that they can forward such threats to Twitch's support staff, and if they don't, their stream is at risk from automated bot detection penalizing them.

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#187

Post by suoduandao3 » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

burnte wrote: post #182

adastra22 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In that scenario, Apple should have been more specific in their communications. In that scenario Apple is highly constrained in what they can say.

By who? If it's by internal rules, they are not constrained, they choose not to share info.

probably whatever legal investigation is happening about the real source of the funds.

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#188

Post by moralestapia » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

quickthrowman wrote: post #159

moralestapia wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> That's the dumbest way one could launder money. So now you’re admitting the scenario I proposed is money laundering. Have a nice day :)

[flagged]

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#189

Post by gcheong » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

RagnarD wrote: post #122

I developed several iPhone apps. While I didn't run into something as serious as this, I have a hard time seeing how any company could invest serious money into developing an app that Apple - in its sole judgement - can capriciously reject. I am greatly in favor of competing app stores and the unequivocal ability to "sideload" any apps (at the user's risk of course.) I suspect Apple themselves don't realize that thei…

“I suspect Apple themselves don't realize that their own policies have inhibited the development of apps which would blow away what currently exist at the high end,…”

I suspect they not only know this but are counting on it. Apple have become plain old monopolists and quality of product is not the first consideration because, by definition, there is no competition by which they would have to care in order to maintain their position in the marketplace.

Re: Developer account removed by Apple

#190

Post by LAC-Tech » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 7:00 PM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #114

nmilo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is literally just racism.

No, attempting to prevent money from flowing into a country which is actively waging war against neighbors is not racism.

Thanks, I'll be sure to make a huge deal everytime I see software from Israel