Wonder how other people are re-acting to this. There’s one month left to comply before apps are removed from the store.
I’m really struggling with having to put my personal address and phone number on the app store for the whole world to see. Personally, just because I release an app I don’t want everyone to know where I live and I don’t want people thinking the can call me up at any time of day or night. Email address is fine.
What do other people think of this? As I don’t make much income from the app I’m thinking of just letting it lapse as it’s not worth the invasion of privacy to me.
I decided to leave the Play Store for this reason. The annual revenue of the Play Store is too low for me and I do not want to trade it for my security.
Google says that the customer has the right to know the publisher’s personal information, but the real problem is that the information is shown to everyone, not just “customers”. A person becomes a customer after paying, not before.
This may be a sort of lexical short circuit, but as I see it, it is an injustice and a real risk to our privacy, for all of us who have a sole proprietorship in which personal information coincides with business information.
I think it’s incredibly stupid and actually goes against European privacy laws since most people with apps on these app stores are small time individual traders, not companies.
Plus, at least in the case of Apple, the customer purchases from Apple, not from you directly. For all intents and purposes, Apple treats customers as being theirs. Except when it’s inconvenient for them, in which case they become your customers.
You can always set your status to not being a Trader, but I don’t know how smart that is legally.
This was exactly the point when I contacted Google asking if there was a way to not show my data on the Play Store. The text of the regulation says that a customer must know the data of the entity to which he gives money when he buys a software, but in fact the customer of an App gives money to Google (or Apple), not to the developer!
And not only that, as I said before, a customer is only a customer if he pays, so it is not right that the data is visible to everyone, even to those who have not yet made any purchases.
I don’t know if I agree with this part, though. Being able to make an informed purchasing decision means you need to know who you’re buying from. (Which really is Apple/Google as we’ve said but whoever made these laws does not understand this, apparently.)
FWIW, I no longer have any products on the App Store (partly) because of this law, and I will register a company with its own address and phone number (rather than a sole proprietorship) before attempting to sell anything on the App Store again.
No, but if you then consider buying a Ford, you might want to know who manufactures it, so the information must be displayed.
And even if an app is given away for free, it might include ads, or promote other producs, or the author could monetize the app in some way in the future, or it could perhaps somehow cause harm or stop working or be deceitful in some unforseen way, etc.
As to the payments, the customer makes the payment through Apple/Google, true, but it is the developer who receives the money (or most of it, at least). I agree with the right of a customer to know who the actual recepient is.
Also, if the information is not disclosed, one developer could distribute many different low-quality products under different pseudonyms.
That a phone number must be displayed is straight out silly though. I’d certainly get a second phone number.
On the other hand, we have no way to know who our customers are, because payments are made to Apple, and Apple issues receipts. If someone calls or pops up at my door saying “I’m your customer, you must help me!” how do I know if it’s true? Should he show me a receipt?
I don’t know… it’s just too wrong in so many ways.
Same but it shouldn’t just be readily, publicly available. If a customer had an issue with a product they purchased through the store then they should be able to request that information for legal reasons and whatnot. Having it there for anyone and everyone is just silly.
I already get so many spam emails from people trying to flog their crappy “let me build an app for you” services - I can’t imagine the amount of spam you’d get if you home address was available too, and the spam calls!
New member here, based in the UK. I too had been agonising whether to comply with this as I’m registered as an Individual Developer for macOS / iOS stuff.
I eventually caved-in the other day as I’m planning on releasing quite a few plug-ins on the App Store - made with JUCE of course!
For anyone curious about the process itself…
FWIW, it only took a few minutes. I uploaded a passport image as proof of name and a recent Council Tax Bill as proof of address. They also ping your email and mobile with a confirmation code. Got an email from Apple a couple of hours later saying AOK.
I can now look forward to receiving prank calls and dubious items in the mail from my European friends… Hopefully not!
Anyhoo, just wanted to add this for anyone wanting to know about what it entails.
Hopefully not!