Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

developer.apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 398 posts

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

#301

Post by cbsmith »

CountHackulus wrote: post #123

Dropping adds seems good to me, but dropping analytics doesn't seem great from a game dev perspective. New features and game balance is often driven by analytics data. For example, if no one's using a certain feature in the game then maybe it needs more attention brought to it or maybe attention won't be focused on it for the next update. I understand that there's a fine line between game analytics and farming PII bu…

As you point out, the rule doesn't prevent ads or analytics. It just prohibits third party ads or analytics. Cynically, one might say that prohibits best-of-breed ads or analytics. ;-)

It's not hard to see how this might turn out to be a case of a policy that sounds good, but in practice is a disaster.

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

#302

Post by cbsmith »

S_A_P wrote: post #246

Here me out here- I equate apps with ads as predatory. The gut feeling from many apps/games is that the goal is to annoy you into paying. Many “free” games let you have one ‘turn’ and then force a 30-60 second ad on you that usually redirects you to the App Store to download some other affiliate app. Maybe I am the old man screaming get off my lawn, but when pc shareware was the rage you usually attempted to delight…

But this won't prevent ads. It merely prohibits third party ads.

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

#303

Post by vmurthy »

sdegutis wrote: post #95
TheCapn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you morally disagree with advertising/tracking monetization as a whole or just those particularly geared towards vulnerable populations? (children in your instance) I have my professional job developing software solutions for clients on a contractual base, but for a period after I graduated university I dabbled in mobile development and made the decision during that time that I'd never bloat my crappy apps with ad…

Not OP but I've had some thoughts on ads for a while that I've never shared: 1. Ads ruins user experience. This is pretty much an objective fact. People can and do adapt, but it's moving away from the ideal. 2. Ads often manipulates the user (emotionally, psychologically) to get clicks, which is just downright unethical. 3. Often unethical things are advertised, things that shouldn't even be on the market. These are…

Couldn't agree more on 2 and 3. What is even more unacceptable to me is that these ad networks track everything I do on the web. It is one thing that I see an ad for a laptop when I search for Chromebook (I'll call it contextual for ease) but totally different thing that I see ads for say Professional training when searching for Chromebook because I happened to click on a post on LinkedIn long ago. Other words, I don't like companies having a profile on me which they can use however the way they want at a later date.

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

#304

Post by PeterStuer »

TheCapn wrote: post #71
kerng wrote: post #26

I totally agree with this! I built a game and naively added ads to it as it seemed a good way to monetize. The game started to be really liked, and had 300k+ downloads overall. Many kids started playing it also. Luckily I realized quickly that kids play on the devices of parents and so the ads they might see are at times super inappropriate! Then I removed all ads, I'd rather make less money but have people play and…

Do you morally disagree with advertising/tracking monetization as a whole or just those particularly geared towards vulnerable populations? (children in your instance) I have my professional job developing software solutions for clients on a contractual base, but for a period after I graduated university I dabbled in mobile development and made the decision during that time that I'd never bloat my crappy apps with ad…

I used not to, but after having been in a few research programs exploring the future of add-tech, I now think we should treat advertising as we do environmental pollutants, and the collection and monetization of personal data as a harmful substance business in need of extremely strict regulation.

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

#305

Post by chii »

Mirioron wrote: post #255
chii wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nearly impossible to monetize. No ads, but also basically no in-app purchases either. How about a paid app? Charge what it costs to create once. The old model worked fine before the advent of IAP and adware. If the app is good, people would pay for it. Esp. if now there's a specific category for discovery!

There's a disconnect between who plays/uses the app and who pays. How do you know that it's worth the money if you're not going to play it?

Why should the parents not play an app they give to their child?

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

#306

Post by whywhywhywhy »

ksec wrote: post #86
kerng wrote: post #26

I totally agree with this! I built a game and naively added ads to it as it seemed a good way to monetize. The game started to be really liked, and had 300k+ downloads overall. Many kids started playing it also. Luckily I realized quickly that kids play on the devices of parents and so the ads they might see are at times super inappropriate! Then I removed all ads, I'd rather make less money but have people play and…

>Luckily I realized quickly that kids play on the devices of parents and so the ads they might see are at times super inappropriate! That was exactly what happen to my kids yesterday. I don't mind ads, but when they are inappropriate for the 5 years old I get really pissed off. And I wish Apple Arcade could come sooner so they don't get distracted with Ads. It is the same reason I don't really allow them to watch You…

I mean the solution already exists and has existed since app store day one, you could just only let them play paid for games right now today.

Not sure why you have to wait for Apple Arcade.

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

#307

Post by adrianhel »

mrep wrote: post #163
punnerud wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway also ban: Alcohol, smoke, gaming, all ads to children, all gun related, not allowed to count points in games before children are 13, credit card loans, all health related than can’t show scientific benefit..

> Norway also ban: Alcohol, smoke, gaming Gaming, as in like video games and board games are banned? Seriously?

No. Gambling ads are not allowed though. Neither alcohol or smoking are banned, but ads for them are.

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

#308

Post by whywhywhywhy »

scarface74 wrote: post #168
madrox wrote: post #167

I worked for a very large company that's considered a leader in apps and games for kids. I don't think this is as good as it seems first glance. COPPA compliance isn't new. There are some third party analytics tools that are COPPA compliant, and any responsible company is already taking COPPA seriously. What's new here is saying you can't farm responsibility for your data collection to COPPA-compliant third party SDK…

Like I said above, what’s wrong with the simple idea of getting people to pay for apps and avoid any ads?

(almost) no users want that in 2019, When the App Stores launched we raced to the bottom and the price point we came to was free.

Just read the responses in this thread yourself, 5 years ago it would have been full of people demanding this now there are just a handful of you and the rest have switched to demanding their free app deal is sweeter with less downsides, not that they would rather pay.

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

#309

Post by rusk »

robomartin wrote: post #267
bunderbunder wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure I morally disagree with advertising or tracking. This seems to me like one of those spots where one's approach to ethics can play a big part in the conclusions you draw. From a sort of Kant-style, deontological perspective, where you have to be able to say with confidence that something is morally wrong in order to make much of a judgment at all about it, yeah, it seems hard to mount a strong case agai…

The problem I have with the anti-advertising crowd is that none of them take their philosophy to the required ethical conclusion: Stop using free ad-supported resources. Google and Facebook are easy examples of this. The position would be far more ethically aligned if they unplugged from all ad-supported products and services.

The alternative ethical conclusion is to pay for the services. I would if I could, but a lot of these guys don't offer this because they want a nice broad stroke of people in their data pie.

And that's just where these services are being up front. There's a lot of sneaky underhand tracking that goes on without even being aware of it.

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

#310

Post by rusk »

Guest0918231 wrote: post #206
meowface wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in the app market, but I run a few user-content-oriented websites which get millions of monthly hits. They're funded only by community donations. I decided to never add any ads to any of them. I'm not sure I morally disagree with advertising or tracking. (In my case, my websites are aimed at adults and there are no concerns about children seeing inappropriate content.) It's not about the morality or even the…

I run a user-content website, and hate advertising too. But, the website costs $15,000 a year in expenses to run, and community donations bring in $3,000. Advertising generates $50,000. I stay with safe ad categories (no drugs, alcohol, gambling, adult content, etc), and use standard display sizes. No audio ads, background ads, popups, etc. I'm sure the site could generate twice the revenue with background advertisem…

Do you serve the ads yourself or do you defer to third party ad networks? I have no problem with the former, but with the latter I think it's very hard to control what gets displayed, and you're also opening your users up to various attack vectors.

There has got to be a niche available for somebody to do plain old non-evil advertising???

EDIT $15,000 a year sounds like a tremendous amount of money to run a web site in 2019 ...

Post reply on HN