What's the backend of the Rolly AI chat app like? Is it using ChatGPT in a manner that violates their TOS?
Developer account removed by Apple
431–440 of 457 posts
Re: Developer account removed by Apple
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the illegal part? Which country would this be illegal in?
The illegal part is money theft. As for which country it's illegal in: all of them.
Most (all?) countries have the concept of "ill-gotten gains", in which money earned illegally or fraudulently isn't legally yours. Not saying that's what happened here, but discussing the idea of post-transaction entitlement.
Re: Developer account removed by Apple
#433Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are "companies" in developing countries that you can send money to who, if you send a large enough amount, will create and publish an app on the app store in your name and use a portion of the funds you give them to purchase stolen credit cards and/or apple store gift cards (usually obtained by some form of credit card fraud), and make purchases of that app, thus washing your original dirty funds. This is money…
Nope, that's still not money laundering.
If you obtain funds illicitly and transmit them round-trip through a 3rd party, lossily, such that the 3rd party and any outside observer such as the government are unaware that you are both sides, you are laundering money.
But please tell me what money laundering is and is not. It's not like I have a close to a decade of real world experience in an industry whose primary goals include combating it and working with relevant authorities.
Re: Developer account removed by Apple
#434Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I guess the App Store fraud prevention team hasn’t necessarily found a good solution yet. The most essential device of the century is owned by two companies. The ability for them to completely control software and business activities on top of something that is almost as essential as public transportation is appalling. The DOJ needs to remove the "app store" racket for essential computing devices. Software needs to…
Android removed the big technical measures that gave Google's Play Store a competitive advantage over alternatives, in no small part because of EU pressure. And while the Play Store is by far the biggest player in town, Amazon's Appstore, Huawei's AppGallery and F-Droid are all notable alternatives. Meanwhile on iOS the best we seem to get is the EU Digital Markets Act setting some rules for fairness on the big marke…
They're really not notable alternatives. I love F-Droid but its selection is very limited. Good luck finding people who use Amazon Appstore, Huawei AppGallery or any of these other stores.
Let's imagine there's a company called Ticketmuster that had a monopoly on ticket sales. If they tolerate a shitty little kiosk selling a score of tickets a day, does this mean Ticketmuster does not have a monopoly share of the market?
Re: Developer account removed by Apple
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't an Apple problem, it's a problem with every business review platform. If a shady marketing firm takes a contract to give an app fake 5 star reviews, there's no way for the review platform to know if that shady marketing firm was hired by the app's developer or their competitor. Only the marketing firm knows.
There is a way for the platform to handle that scenario... Manual review. Apple chooses not to rely on manual review and we shouldn't discount this decision of theirs.
How would you be able to tell by manual review if a fake review from a SEO firm was paid for by that app's developer or by their competitor? There is no signal there. The ads are identical.
Re: Developer account removed by Apple
#436Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Apple isn't able to police this then maybe it's unhealthy for the market to be completely controlled by them. They make billions off the AppStore and their refusal to reinvest in proper moderation (especially for an app worth hundreds of thousands in revenue) is quite telling.
I think you just said any company that cannot practice moderation with absolute perfection should not be in business?
I'd say to "an acceptable level of moderation" - not perfect. But I agree with that statement if the company is itself profiting from the moderation. I think there's a separate example to be considered when the company is a "dumb host" - but as soon as the company starts promoting certain content with a complex algorithm (smarter than "most recent", "has most updoots", or even "has most updoots with a decay function") instead of just being a place people park their content then I think they adopt that responsibility. I feel quite similarly about things like Instagram and Facebook - I'd give a pass to Reddit because it basically does nothing outside of hosting discussions (similar to this platform).
But yea, if you're a business that makes money promoting other people's content then you're responsible for that content. Similarly, I'd argue that a skywriting company that writes libel in the sky should be held responsible as an accessory to the client if they were aware the statements were libelous.
Re: Developer account removed by Apple
#437Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't an Apple problem, it's a problem with every business review platform. If a shady marketing firm takes a contract to give an app fake 5 star reviews, there's no way for the review platform to know if that shady marketing firm was hired by the app's developer or their competitor. Only the marketing firm knows.
If the App Store is the only vehicle for selling mobile apps on Apple devices, then by virtue of their monopoly, they have a duty to be entirely transparent and fair. It’s entirely an Apple problem.
Plus, they point to their 30% take as helping to prevent these kind of issues. So if that 30% isn’t helping to police the Apple Store, what is it doing?
Re: Developer account removed by Apple
#438Something feels off... those apps don't seem like 33K/MRR worthy. I suspect some kind of manipulation was being done to... help?
> some kind of manipulation They tell you what kind of manipulation, in what they hastily tried to unwind when caught... a whole TODO list for scammy apps: "Within 10 days, we updated each of the six applications: removed all rating requests, revised all payment screens in line with Apple's recommendations, added Intercom for swift user assistance, established a help center with articles on canceling trials, requesti…
Trying to address anything that _could_ be seen as a problem is not an admission of wrongdoing. This is the behavior of someone who has been accused of bad faith or rule-breaking but has no other recourse but to try and follow the rules as strictly as possible going forward.
Re: Developer account removed by Apple
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 pe…
>it almost always involves putting cash into a bank account Yeah, I edited my comment shortly after but you were already writing this probably. Only an observation, it almost always starts as money flowing into a bank account, though. >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. No, because you cannot pay for apps with cash.…
> If you already have cash into a bank account somewhere in the world then ... you most likely don't have the need to conceal it anymore
This is where you’re going repeatedly wrong. Most money laundering doesn’t involve cash.
If you embezzle funds, or defraud an investor, you wind up with dirty money in a bank account. While it’s there, it’s hot. You could do the crypto trade, but you’d still be in a position of holding cash (even in a tax haven, depositing loads of cash is expensive) and/or having a tainted account.
Running it through Apple yields a bank account tied to a developer entity that receives deposits from Apple. You can leave your money in that account without too many worries for extended periods of time, and produce KYC receipts to wary counterparties when asked to. That’s valuable.
Re: Developer account removed by Apple
#440This is all shitware and you were commissioning fake reviews.