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“Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

developer.apple.com

171–180 of 398 posts

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike tracking as much as anyone, but can you really fault them for using Google analytics? It's not like PBS choose to use them "to profit off the viewers".

I have a stupid question, why don't they use something like Matomo instead?

"Nobody ever got fired for choosing ___" (fill in the blank with whatever the incumbent is for some technology)

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#172
Here's how I expect this to go:

1. Six months from now, Apple will announce a new ad network, which will be whitelisted for Kids apps.

2. Twelve months from now, they'll ban all non-Apple ad networks in kids apps. If they want to be subtle about it, I'm sure they'll find some inappropriate ad to use as a pretext.

3. 18 months from now, they'll open their ad network to all apps.

4. 24 months from now, they'll ban non-Apple ad networks in all apps, and swim in money as they've found another way to squeeze more money out of their captive userbase.

And every step of the way, HN will cheer as Apple continues to brutally exploit their ownership of the platform.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#173
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally it depends on the product. I find advertising specific prescription drugs abhorrent to anyone. However, I think it’s completely reasonable to say talk to your doctor about ED or whatever. If there is only one treatment they seem similar, but when several options exist people should not be pushing for a specific drug based on an ad campaign.

Most sane countries forbid medicine/drug ads by law.

I recently visited the US for a conference. The moment I landed, I started getting medicine adverts on websites. It was rather jarring.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#174
post #164

Can someone please clarify the “analytics” part? All kinds of analytics services, or services that use your app analytics for their own purposes, or use it for the sake of ads targeting/retargeting, or have PII risks? I’m not sure I see the harm to kids if an app uses some ads-free analytics provider like Amplitude just for its own 1st party needs... or am I missing something?

Do you have the source code to Amplitude? If not, you don’t know what the binary blob you’re including in your code does.

yes, on iOS (Unity App) all of Amplitude SDK is in source code.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#175
> Apps in the Kids Category may not include third-party advertising or analytics.

Totally agreed for advertising... but analytics are essential to improving the quality and usability of apps including for kids, and they're a real cost to roll your own. Using third-party analytics is like using a third-party JPEG or MP3 decoder: it almost never makes sense spending 100's or 1,000's of hours writing your own.

So I don't get it. What's the harm for kids in third-party analytics? Third-party analytics are just a service, they're not necessarily ever correlated with anything else. But even if they are, the only argument I can imagine is not helping further build up advertising profiles... but if kids aren't seeing the ads anyways then again, what's the harm?

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#176
post #172

Here's how I expect this to go: 1. Six months from now, Apple will announce a new ad network, which will be whitelisted for Kids apps. 2. Twelve months from now, they'll ban all non-Apple ad networks in kids apps. If they want to be subtle about it, I'm sure they'll find some inappropriate ad to use as a pretext. 3. 18 months from now, they'll open their ad network to all apps. 4. 24 months from now, they'll ban non-…

What's the problem about Apple doing that? It's their platform. You can go use whatever else you like, nobody forces you to use their system.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#177
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On YouTube it’s not just the presence of ads that’s the problem, it’s the type of ads. My kids were watching an obviously kids-themed kids-friendly YouTube video and were shown an ad for Walking Dead, with graphic scary zombies. My 4yo was covering her eyes in fear. Like WTF Google.

Yeah I actually stopped allowing YouTube and YouTube Kids. YouTube has inappropriate ads, and YouTube Kids content is basically half ads in disguise (just people advertising toys and how they work).

I get the feeling, but you must realize that preventing your children from using YouTube is like being the parent who prevented their children from watching television.

You're teaching your children about censorship.

It's easier, sure, but maybe it's worth the effort to have a mature conversation with them instead of wholesale preventing access to their generation's largest media platform.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#178
post #172

Here's how I expect this to go: 1. Six months from now, Apple will announce a new ad network, which will be whitelisted for Kids apps. 2. Twelve months from now, they'll ban all non-Apple ad networks in kids apps. If they want to be subtle about it, I'm sure they'll find some inappropriate ad to use as a pretext. 3. 18 months from now, they'll open their ad network to all apps. 4. 24 months from now, they'll ban non-…

Sure thing I will cheer. I'm tired to death by quality and content of the ads in apps right now. I'm tired to death that apps have size of an elephant because of bunch of unrelated advertising and tracking frameworks compiled in. I'm tired that apps require permissions they don't need and then send data who knows where. And no, I don't give accesses, but bunch of people who has my contact information and less tech savvy or less privacy conscious send it around, left right and center.

So yeah, I will cheer. You can't fix your shit? Ok then, Apple will do this, this time on their terms.

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#179

> Apps in the Kids Category may not include third-party advertising or analytics. Totally agreed for advertising... but analytics are essential to improving the quality and usability of apps including for kids, and they're a real cost to roll your own. Using third-party analytics is like using a third-party JPEG or MP3 decoder: it almost never makes sense spending 100's or 1,000's of hours writing your own. So I don'…

Because it’s wrong?

Re: “Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics”

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which will include no ads, so: yay! Mission accomplished.

No third-party ads.

So what services are exempt from this ban? Does Apple offer a first-party advertisement plugin?
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