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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

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.

Original Submission