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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

#91

Post by Brian_K_White »

tenryuu wrote: post #72
thomasahle wrote: post #34

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…

To me, even if you don't have an account deletion button. User retention isn't going to matter because the people who are looking for it aren't going to use the service anyway, you are just holding onto dead data

Tell that to giganews or dejanews whoever the F it was some usenet service I signed up for once, who had no way to cancel the account on the site, required a phone call during business hours in Sweden or somewhere, and I think I even did the first few of their hoops like sent an email to the special address, but when they didn't simply honor the request, I just stopped paying.

I think either the card was expiring naturally or it was google pay or something that I could shut off. (it was years ago by now so thats why the vague details)

anyway, they actually tried to say I owed them money for years and I even got emails and calls from collections companies for a few years.

If they had been in the US I bet it would have been harder to just blow them off like that.

Simply stopping payments is not the ultimate trump you and I both thoight it should be.

For my part I decided I was on record as having requested to cancel the service, and had not used the service, so do your worst. Go ahead and try to convince a judge that I owe you anything.

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#92

Post by Brian_K_White »

nindalf wrote: post #37
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 ab…

I agree with the idea that once you say or do something in public, you no longer have any rights or control over it, other than about credit or slander.

You have a right to complain if someone lies about something you said, either by putting words in your mouth or taking credit for your words.

You have zero rights over anyone else's memory of the fact that you said something or what you said.

That's not some new thing HN is doing, that's just life.

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#93

Post by mimixco »

WalterGR wrote: post #32
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 devi…

That sentence is about storing Facebook logins, for example, not storing other data about the user. Apple is saying you may allow people to login to their social networks (to post through your app) but you cannot save their login from Facebook into your private (off-device) server.

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#94

Post by [deleted] »

mimixco wrote: post #93
WalterGR wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 devi…

That sentence is about storing Facebook logins, for example, not storing other data about the user. Apple is saying you may allow people to login to their social networks (to post through your app) but you cannot save their login from Facebook into your private (off-device) server.

[deleted]

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#95

Post by danaris »

9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: post #68
sturmeh wrote: post #52

Expectation: Apps offer account deletion, finally empowering the user. Reality: Apps no longer support seamless account creation and instead redirect the user to a website to register, user can no longer manage any aspect of their account from the app.

What are your assumptions?

Not the GP, but seems to me the assumption there is "companies will do everything in their power to make it hard for you to stop making their numbers go up", whether those numbers are actual money, user data, or just total user counts.

Alongside, of course, the assumption that "companies don't respect their users in any way, shape, or form."

These seem like assumptions which, while they certainly have exceptions, are well borne out by the available data.

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#96

Post by danaris »

veeti wrote: post #77
threeseed wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An app is a program that launches, does something and exits. iCloud is an "always on" cloud storage/sync service where you choose what data you want to use it for.

How is this a meaningful distinction whatsoever? There are countless apps that allow you to sign up for an "always on" service. Should they be exempt from allowing you to delete your account as well? Or is that privilege reserved for built in bloatware?

iCloud is part of the operating system, and, most importantly, it is not downloaded through the App Store.

These rules are for apps on the App Store.

Edit to add: There may be a reasonable debate to be had over whether there should be some visible component of iCloud that has to be downloaded from the App Store before it can be used on an iDevice—or whether the App Store rules should be, by some means, applied to the entirety of what can/does run on an iDevice. But right now, neither of those are the case, and thus, though some may find the difference between "iOS" and "application running on iOS" frustratingly slim, Apple is not, in this instance, applying its rules inconsistently.

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#97

Post by alok-g »

An interesting corollary: A software supporting file creation must also support deletion. A user can create a document in Microsoft Word and save it. Why can't they also delete it from within Word. If they have an open document, where's the delete button to just delete it. :-)

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#98

Post by anchpop »

hortense wrote: post #23

A related question about this: if an account was flagged for something (e.g. the account was shadow banned), is it OK by GRPD standards to: 1/ not tell the user this info. 2/ keep track of the fact this account was flagged after the account was deleted, for instance by keeping a hash of the email address of the accounts that were flagged?

Not sure about #1, but #2 is definitely allowed, although you’re supposed to keep only the data that you need to prevent them from circumventing your ban system.

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#99

Post by nindalf »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #92
nindalf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ab…

I agree with the idea that once you say or do something in public, you no longer have any rights or control over it, other than about credit or slander. You have a right to complain if someone lies about something you said, either by putting words in your mouth or taking credit for your words. You have zero rights over anyone else's memory of the fact that you said something or what you said. That's not some new thin…

This is exactly the response I expected. Would you feel the same way of Facebook used your exact words to respond to a GDPR request?

Re: Apps supporting account creation must also offer account deletion

#100

Post by riffic »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #50
WalterGR wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!"

Can someone explain it to me, though? Logically, after you check-out of a hotel you've surrendered your right to abode at that location - after that you're usually limited to common/shared areas like the lobby, bar, restaurant, maybe the pool - but excepting the lobby those places are closed at night - and they'd have security to remove people from the lobby if necessary - so as far as the Eagles' are concerned, what…

It's not literal.
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