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

developer.apple.com

51–60 of 398 posts

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

#51

Here is the whole section > 1.3 Kids Category > The Kids Category is a great way for people to easily find apps that are designed for children. If you want to participate in the Kids Category, you should focus on creating a great experience specifically for younger users. These apps must not include links out of the app, purchasing opportunities, or other distractions to kids unless reserved for a designated area beh…

Yup, and parents can just install one of the Kids-Category clones of candy crush that will inevitably show up.

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

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

#52
post #29
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, I believe it's based on the belief that children in partiular don't yet have the necessary mental tools to be able to properly analyze content -- basically, that they're influenced by media to a much higher degree than adults. > Basically ads equivalent OTA television or magazine ads should be allowed I would guess that proponents of this approach also feel that the contents of TV/magazine ads should be s…

Not just a belief, it's been studied many times, and it is in fact illegal to have "native" advertising on children's TV shows, at least in the U.S.

Almost all cartoons aimed at kids hope to make money on related merchandise. A lot of animated shows were cancelled because while the ratings were good, they skewed toward older teens and adults that didn't buy toys. Two that come to mind are "Young Justice" and the original "Teen Titans". Cartoon Network specifically made "Teen Titans Go!" to skew younger.

This isn't a new thing, they killed off most of the Transformers in the 80s movie so they could introduce a new line of characters/toys.

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

#53
post #40

Here is the whole section > 1.3 Kids Category > The Kids Category is a great way for people to easily find apps that are designed for children. If you want to participate in the Kids Category, you should focus on creating a great experience specifically for younger users. These apps must not include links out of the app, purchasing opportunities, or other distractions to kids unless reserved for a designated area beh…

YouTube would be well advised to follow this model for videos intended for kids and anything on YouTube Kids outside of iOS.

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.

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

#54
This has been something both requested and discussed online for a long time. Kids can't really decide what information to share and what not, and they are often bombarded by retargeting ads supported by analytics services. It still remains unclear how those apps will make money using 3rd party ads, but it is clear that kids apps won't be able to use 3rd party SaaS services (Mixpanel, Amplitude, Firebase, etc) and have to rely on same-domain-on-premises and/or open source product analytics services, eg Countly (shameless plug: I am co-founder of Countly, building an open source analytics platform particularly for privacy and security reasons).

Let's see how it goes. Apple sometimes comes up with a "quick" decision and then stands down after a few months as criticisms occur. I expect that corresponding wording will change until the section goes into effect.

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

#55
If you charge for listing and take 30% for sales, people are going to try some aggressive revenue techniques.

One of the biggest unsolved problems for users is how to get the security of a walled garden while still encouraging open development, the sort of little experiments that become free simple QoL apps or toy proof of concept programs that spawn a business.

It's a problem only for users of course, less so for the gardeners.

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

#56
post #46
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, I believe it's based on the belief that children in partiular don't yet have the necessary mental tools to be able to properly analyze content -- basically, that they're influenced by media to a much higher degree than adults. > Basically ads equivalent OTA television or magazine ads should be allowed I would guess that proponents of this approach also feel that the contents of TV/magazine ads should be s…

Then why are first-party ads allowed?

I hope this is step one, and that first-party ads are step two or three.

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

#58
post #29
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, I believe it's based on the belief that children in partiular don't yet have the necessary mental tools to be able to properly analyze content -- basically, that they're influenced by media to a much higher degree than adults. > Basically ads equivalent OTA television or magazine ads should be allowed I would guess that proponents of this approach also feel that the contents of TV/magazine ads should be s…

Not just a belief, it's been studied many times, and it is in fact illegal to have "native" advertising on children's TV shows, at least in the U.S.

[deleted]

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

#59
post #25
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, but where do you want to go with that? Are you suggesting that because kids can use any app on a phone that all tracking and ads should be banned?

iPhones have kids mode that prevents the kid from using any app on the phone. That will probably only deter toddlers, but it's something.

>That will probably only deter toddlers

Is this actually true? Jailbreaks haven't been persistent in the face of updates in a long while, so for devices kept up to date it's possible to lock down an iPhone fairly hard. I haven't investigated how parent control compares to full MDM, but the supervision capabilities now in iOS [1] are pretty powerful. For better and for worse of course, that kind of control over user devices, particularly in the context of parents and children, is definitely a double edged sword. But compared to typical computers I don't think it should be lightly dismissed either as something kids can just get around. They aren't open systems.

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1: https://www.apple.com/business/resources/docs/Managing_Devic...

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