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Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

developer.apple.com

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Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#31

Post by nindalf »

stingraycharles wrote: post #26
toxik wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird how these integrity precautions are being championed by Apple and not the EU or US, democracy is dead, long live corpocracy

To be fair the “right to be forgotten” is, in fact, a law in the EU, it’s just that often you need to go through great lengths to exercise this right. Apple’s playing field is just much more narrow, which allows it to enforce rules like these in an elegant manner which makes for a much better experience to the end user.

You’re confusing the right to be removed from search engine indexes (right to be forgotten) with GDPR (control of data provided to websites)

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#32

Post by WalterGR »

cton wrote: post #9

Relevant text under 5.1.1 (v): > (v) Account Sign-In: If your app doesn’t include significant account-based features, let people use it without a login. If your app supports account creation, you must also offer account deletion within the app. Apps may not require users to enter personal information to function, except when directly relevant to the core functionality of the app or required by law. If your core app f…

Can anyone translate that into practical terms? To me that doesn’t match this post’s title, currently “AppStore: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion”.

Quote:

  The app must also include a mechanism to revoke social network credentials and disable data access between the app and social network from within the app. An app may not store credentials or tokens to social networks off of the device and may only use such credentials or tokens to directly connect to the social network from the app itself while the app is in use.
There’s nothing about account or stored-data-about-me deletion in there.

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#33

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

mosselman wrote: post #12
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, people use their apps for all sorts of important things, and it would be disruptive to accidentally delete their accounts from many of them. This issue can be mitigated through confirmation dialogs and other measures. So Apple’s new pro-consumer policy applies to everyone but Apple. Interesting, but not unexpected.

The point is that iCloud is not an app. The account you are referring to is a phone account, not app account. You are comparing apples to oranges.

Why isn’t it an app? What’s the criteria for something being an app?

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#34

Post by thomasahle »

A few years ago I was part of an AI customer service startup. One of our first customers was a web hosting company, and we were supposed to take some of the load off the chat support team.

When we talked to the support team they told us their by far largest task was handling account deletions. They had tried to just put a button in the control panel, but the CEO of the company thought it was bad for retention.

So we started writing scripts for "I want to cancel my account" and similar requests. The official process also required the users to verify by email after talking to support, so there were a number of steps. Eventually we needed an API call for actually completing the process. But we were told the CEO had to approve.

The CEO didn't know we were working on automating account deletions. And when we finally got to talk to him about giving us API access, he decided it would be easier to just add an account deletion button to the control panel. That's how we lost our initial business case.

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#35

Post by contriban »

mosselman wrote: post #12
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, people use their apps for all sorts of important things, and it would be disruptive to accidentally delete their accounts from many of them. This issue can be mitigated through confirmation dialogs and other measures. So Apple’s new pro-consumer policy applies to everyone but Apple. Interesting, but not unexpected.

The point is that iCloud is not an app. The account you are referring to is a phone account, not app account. You are comparing apples to oranges.

Everything is an app and nothing is an app. I opened my bank account through an app. Is iCloud more important than my bank account?

“iCloud is not an app and does not need a delete button through the same UI” is a double-standard cop out.

Delay the deletion by 2 weeks if it’s really that dangerous, but they should still allow it.

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#36

Post by disgu »

toxik wrote: post #19
cton wrote: post #9

Relevant text under 5.1.1 (v): > (v) Account Sign-In: If your app doesn’t include significant account-based features, let people use it without a login. If your app supports account creation, you must also offer account deletion within the app. Apps may not require users to enter personal information to function, except when directly relevant to the core functionality of the app or required by law. If your core app f…

Weird how these integrity precautions are being championed by Apple and not the EU or US, democracy is dead, long live corpocracy

It's been EU law for a while that a company must delete all user data upon request.

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#37

Post by nindalf »

kgraves wrote: post #10

This is great on Apple’s part for enforcing this for every account based app, now if only HN offered account deletion…

Or indeed, deletion of your comments. The way dang explained it to me was that each comment thread is a shared work created by multiple people rather than a collection of individual comments. Since you don’t own your comments, you can’t delete them. He is very accommodating about requests to disavow comments from your account.

But I don’t expect people on HN to complain about this. They hold every other website to absurd standards on data ownership and content moderation, while happily being users of a site where they own none of the data and are subject to strict rules about what can be discussed and how.

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#38

Post by [deleted] »

cton wrote: post #9

Relevant text under 5.1.1 (v): > (v) Account Sign-In: If your app doesn’t include significant account-based features, let people use it without a login. If your app supports account creation, you must also offer account deletion within the app. Apps may not require users to enter personal information to function, except when directly relevant to the core functionality of the app or required by law. If your core app f…

[deleted]

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#39

Post by WalterGR »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #29
stingraycharles wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair the “right to be forgotten” is, in fact, a law in the EU, it’s just that often you need to go through great lengths to exercise this right. Apple’s playing field is just much more narrow, which allows it to enforce rules like these in an elegant manner which makes for a much better experience to the end user.

This is more about the "Hotel California" business model where you can't cancel a service without jumping through ridiculous hoops.

I’d never heard of the “Hotel California business model.” Googled it - for others: Hotel California is a song by the band The Eagles, which contains the lyrics:

  “Relax," said the night man,

  "We are programmed to receive

  You can check out any time you like

  But you can never leave!"
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