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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday March 07 2020, @06:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the everyone-loves-ads! dept.

Apple's new App Store policies fight spam and abuse but also allow ads in notifications:

Earlier this week, Apple notified app developers of a revised set of App Store review guidelines—the rules by which Apple curates its iOS/iPadOS, tvOS, watchOS, and macOS App Stores.

Among many other things, the revised rules expand the definition of what constitutes a spam app, clarify that developers are able to use push notifications to serve ads to users (provided users explicitly opt in to them), and limit submissions of certain types apps to trusted organizations in regulated or sensitive industries.

The most controversial of these changes has been the clear statement that developers can serve ads to users via push notifications. At one point in the past, Apple's guidelines stated that push notifications "should not be used for advertising, promotions, or direct marketing purposes or to send sensitive personal or confidential information." Now the guidelines state:

Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used to send sensitive personal or confidential information. Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app's UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages.

Pixel Envy's Nick Heer noted that Apple was already failing to enforce the original language, so this seems like capitulation to what some developers have been doing for a while, perhaps in response to difficulty policing this consistently. Heer also points out that there is not currently a pre-baked way for developers to sort between types of notifications, so the "you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages" language may still curb some of this behavior.


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  • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 07 2020, @07:08PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 07 2020, @07:08PM (#967953)

    and yet Waze will still be allowed. Because speed trap tagging, radarcam alerts, etc. is not evading law enforcement?

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 07 2020, @07:56PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 07 2020, @07:56PM (#967972)

    Apps written by Khazar Jews are explicitly allowed, so no problem there.

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Saturday March 07 2020, @07:56PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday March 07 2020, @07:56PM (#967973) Journal

    Waze has been brought up repeatedly:

    Apple rejects Hong Kong protest map from App Store, relents under pressure [digitaltrends.com] (October)

    As the developers pointed out, that meant Apple should equally well ban the Waze app from the App Store as it notifies people when there is a traffic camera ahead, thus allowing them to evade law enforcement.

    Apple Shares Updated App Store Review Guidelines on Spam, Push Notifications, App Store Reviews, MDM Apps and More [macrumors.com]

    falkon-engine [comment]

    Does this mean Waze, as is (i.e., "police reported ahead" or "speed trap reported ahead" or "red light camera reported ahead"), is on its way out? Technically Waze isn't committing any crime, but one could argue that by being so transparent with the location of 'law enforcement' it allows users to evade said law enforcement.

    Tech giants are not above banning each other's apps [reuters.com], but yeah, I'll believe it when I see it.

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