Comment by Pigalowda
4 years ago
Your app constantly surveils a subject and sends frequent random screen captures to a controller - no matter the activity.
In order to eliminate a few sexual behaviors you’ve created an application that has serious potential for abuse and control. A well functioning adult will simply have a burner phone and the infected phone will only be used for “approved” uses. A minor or abused adult will stop using the phone and probably be isolated as a result. Which of their friend or family will want to have even benign communication with the subject knowing this app is installed (because they will).
You’re not a victim here.
> You're not a victim here
If the app was just rejected I'd agree. Freezing the account, and then _years_ later suggesting the user create a new account makes no sense.
I think it makes sense if the goal is to never approve such an app. A rejection and subsequent tinkering might allow a derivative to make it through. Perhaps they believe in leaving such projects in purgatory and the developer unable to troubleshoot.
Except that other apps with very similar functionality / level of obviousness while in use are still available. Without Apple providing information on what this app does that violates their rules which the other apps do not violate, there’s no way to know that equal enforcement is being applied. I don’t think the author would have posted if all such apps were removed.
4 replies →
That's not a fair strategy. Say if this developer has published several reasonable apps before this, that strategy would forever cut them off from updating those as well.
1 reply →
I disagree, quite strongly.
Let's leave behind this app for a second, and speak in generalities. What should Apple do if it believes that an account is making and distributing spyware or malware? Should they not ban the account altogether? In fact, wouldn't you be mad if you found out that there were playing whack-a-mole with individual submissions from a developer that they'd already decided was harming end users? I personally would be pretty annoyed if it turns out that they let a malicious developer produce spyware and continually tweak and re-submit their apps it until the approvers let it through, and would absolutely support a policy of banning whole developer accounts for certain infractions. I doubt I am in the minority here, even if there are disagreements about what those ban-worthy infractions should be.
So, the question here is whether or not this app is spyware or not. I personally am beginning to suspect yes, both because parental software always toes that line, and based the apps marketing and the developer's comments in this forum. Others might disagree. But while it's reasonable to disagree about whether this is spyware, given the above logic I think we can agree that it's perfectly reasonable for Apple to ban an account that it has determined is making spyware. You should disagree with the determination, and understand that the ban follows that determination directly.
Personally I think the weirdest thing here is the recommendation to make a new account. Generally most companies hate it when you try and recreate an account after a prior ban, and an official recommendation here seems quite odd.