Apps That Didn't Add 'Trader' Contact Info in the EU Removed From App Store

[AppliedMicro]

Apple's development agreement with respect to the App Store has traditionally specified that Apple is permitted to take responsibility for all that – hear from customers, offer refunds, and so on. Relieving small developers of that burden, allowing them to focus on actually providing their apps, was presumably the whole point of that.

“App licenses are provided to you by Apple or a third party developer (“App Provider”). Apple acts as an agent for App Providers in operating the App Store and is not a party to the sales contract or user agreement between you and the App Provider.

(…)

Subject to local law, the App Provider of any Third Party App is solely responsible for its content and warranties, as well as any claims that you may have related to the Third Party App

(…)

Apple is responsible for providing maintenance and support for Apple Apps only, or as required under applicable law. App Providers are responsible for providing maintenance and support for Third Party Apps.

https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/

 

[Analog Kid]

Yeah, can’t imagine putting it out there and bombarded 24 Hrs about bugs and questions. May be use a burner phone. EU has gone too far, not sure how long this will last though.

There are bugs I’ve been annoyed enough about that I’d certainly show up and knock on the door…

Get a PO Box and a separate phone number as a cost of doing business, simple as that, those are not very expensive at all.

Why should consumers have zero idea who they are doing business with?

How does a PO Box and separate number tell you who you’re doing business with?

 

[Abazigal]

So if I'm understanding the opposition to providing a business address and phone number...

Devs want to charge money from customers, but want to remain fully anonymous to those same customers?

I don’t need to know their home address, is what I am saying. An email address and maybe social media handle more than suffices for me. A lot of apps I purchase come from nameless, faceless devs and I personally have no issue with it. Perhaps this speaks more to the disposable nature of apps that I am fine spending $5 here or $10 there and if it’s a bust, then it’s a bust. I am not even going to bother with a refund.

 

[mtbdudex]

This is insane. As a small indie developer you are supposed to put your home address and phone number?

Guess there are 2 choices.
Do it - sell
Don’t do it - find a new job

 

[mtbdudex]

Agreed.

I have lots of random calls / numbers from the USA since the last 2 months, I don't know if it's related to my dev status, but it's so annoying.

I remember when I had a small company, lots of people would call me to sell me stuff for my business.

You have both a business phone number and private / personal right?

 

[sehns]

No, I understand the concept. Being a small business does not free you from certain common practices, such as providing contact information.



You are correct, one could get a PO Box and separate phone line and then ignore them completely, that is called bad customer service. One can also have a web site and email contact that they choose to ignore, hell the email addy could be fake.

I'm flipping this back on you, your points are not valid. If you want to do business then provide contact information so consumers have recourse if needed. A mailing address and phone number are most certainly a cost of doing business, if you cannot afford them then you might want to choose a different profession.

So I just looked up a PO box in my area, for regular letter size they are $4.50/mo or $54/year. Oh the poor indies!

View attachment 2483570

That would be fine except they explicitly do not allow a PO Box/Redirect address OR a redirect number and threaten to ban your account if you do use one that's not your actual address.

Clearly not many actual app developers in here

 

[Starfia]

To the article's author:

The title of this article is "Apps That Didn't Add 'Trader' Contact Info in the EU Removed From App Store".

I believe this is incorrect: it's apps that didn't specify their trader status that Apple says were removed. Only those that indicated by their status that they were traders were required to furnish contact information – the apps of those that updated their status to specify they weren't traders are supposedly still up.

I've pointed this out for a prior article which still appears not to have been corrected.

 

[Lapidus]

I had an app in the App Store, a simple scoreboard for a physical boardgame. I mostly made it for myself but it made about USD 10 per month. I don't want my name, (personal) address and phone number publicly available so now the app is removed in the EU store. I don't mind but I think the EU stinks, everything was fine before. (I'm based in the EU)

 

[bsolar]

That would be fine except they explicitly do not allow a PO Box/Redirect address OR a redirect number and threaten to ban your account if you do use one that's not your actual address.

Apple's documentation states that a PO Box can be provided by individuals but not organizations.

This makes sense since typically an organization needs a registered legal address anyway and PO Boxes usually don't qualify for that purpose.

 

[bsolar]

I had an app in the App Store, a simple scoreboard for a physical boardgame. I mostly made it for myself but it made about USD 10 per month. I don't want my name, (personal) address and phone number publicly available so now the app is removed in the EU store. I don't mind but I think the EU stinks, everything was fine before. (I'm based in the EU)

You don't qualify as a trader IMHO so if I were you I would just report my status as non-trader.

 

[Big_D]

Yeah. I find this rule too difficult for small developers to implement. Especially having a phone number posted publicly

I was a small developer in Germany from 2002 through 2010. I had to be a registered business, I had to go to my local council offices and register my business, including telephone number and address (I was working out of my home, so I had to register my home address).

 

[Big_D]

This is insane. As a small indie developer you are supposed to put your home address and phone number?

I had to, working in Germany as a developer and freelance consultant from 2002 through 2010. It is standard practice and a legal requirement for doing business. Obviously I wasn't on online portals at the time, but my website and email signature had to have my address, contact telephone number and business registration number clearly visible. The App Store is just an extension of those rules, so any developer that currently has a website had to fulfill those requirements already...

 

[Big_D]

Agreed.

I have lots of random calls / numbers from the USA since the last 2 months, I don't know if it's related to my dev status, but it's so annoying.

I remember when I had a small company, lots of people would call me to sell me stuff for my business.

It is swings and roundabouts, you have to have your number shown, but it is illegal for other companies to cold-call you, you have to have asked them to contact you. The same with unsolicited SMS, snail mail or email, you have to opt-in for all of that - with the exception of certain flyers that the Deutsche Post deliver to every address in a district, but that is getting rarer and rarer these days, usually prospects for the local discounters and supermarkets.

 

[SBlue1]

I am using apple’s in app purchase for donations. Other means of donations (or promoting other payment methods is not permitted - unless maybe someone registers as a non-profit, which again, is quite a bit of additional effort)

So it’s not simple.

I just think the guidance is really vague and Apple’s ecosystem doesn’t make this easier.
So I just removed my apps from the EU, because educating and adjusting my apps requires too much effort.

Being a hobby still makes you having a business and having customers even if you label your income as donations. In my free time I volunteered at my kids soccer club and we still needed insurance and to take care of legal stuff since we had people watching the games and buying our hotdogs.

 

[Big_D]

Yeah, can’t imagine putting it out there and bombarded 24 Hrs about bugs and questions. May be use a burner phone. EU has gone too far, not sure how long this will last though.

These rules have been in place for decades, outside of app stores. As a freelance developer working in Germany from 2002 to 2008, I had to have my address, telephone number and registration number on my website and in my email signature.

This is just a logical extension of the standard rules that apply outside the app stores already.

 

[Big_D]

No a PO Box and a separate phone number aren't "cost of doing business". Indie devs are often one person and most apps don't make a lot of money.

Consumers shouldn't get access to someone's phone number and address either, that's just invasive. Not all devs want consumer info (and you can see the ones that do in the privacy label). A website or email address should be enough.

It is your business address and your business telephone number. If you decide to work from home, that is your decision, whether to rent a PO box or to give out your home address.

I worked for a small number of companies in the area, so I never bothered with a PO box, but I did have a separate number for business, which I could switch to voicemail outside of office hours.

 

[Abazigal]

Guess there are 2 choices.
Do it - sell
Don’t do it - find a new job

Or don’t sell in the EU.

If users can cheer the Vision Pro not getting apps like YouTube, Netflix and Spotify, they will be fine being shut out of access to select apps in their region as well.

 

[mw360]

The organizer of an LLC does not have to be a member. Most of the names you see are attorneys.

Maybe in the US, but not in Europe afaik and definitely not in the UK. You could look me up in the registry and see my full name, address and month/year of my DoB. Plus you can look up the officially declared trading address and telephone number of the business. So for my wife's business for example, you can call her personal phone, email her, send post or come stand on our doorstep all using public records. And nothing comes of it. A couple of spammy letters once a year, the usual email spam, and a couple of spammy calls a month.

 

[nostradumbass]

Every company has a business address. Even if it's the own garage. Just like Apple had.

Not good to compare a small company or lone dev as an Apple size corporation with a marketing department.

If a company has revenue over millions of dollars then sure there should be support lines. But some guy who is lucky to make 5 figures can’t handle phone calls from hundreds of people.

I can't understand why the EU is portrayed as the enemy IN EVERY ARTICLE. Some would even suspect bias.

The right call the EU some kind of leftist commie state. It’s not. Their whole ideology about borderless trade and cheap immigrant slave labor pumping up the pyramid scheme housing market is right wing economic theory. If they were left wing at all they would have banned Twitter, put rent controls everywhere, and protected local workers from illegal workers.

 

[mw360]

I don’t need to know their home address, is what I am saying. An email address and maybe social media handle more than suffices for me. A lot of apps I purchase come from nameless, faceless devs and I personally have no issue with it. Perhaps this speaks more to the disposable nature of apps that I am fine spending $5 here or $10 there and if it’s a bust, then it’s a bust. I am not even going to bother with a refund.

But the cost of the app isn't the maximum possible injury a consumer could suffer is it? Not all apps are 'disposable'. There's banking apps, crypto apps, health apps, dating apps, rideshare apps, social apps, navigation apps, vacation apps. I don't need to know their address right now either, but if I ultimately want to sue somebody for serious fraud or negligence, I am going to need more than a twitter handle, or Apple saying 'don't worry, we closed their account so they're not going to do that again for at least 45 minutes.'

 

[Big_D]

Not good to compare a small company or lone dev as an Apple size corporation with a marketing department.

Apple started out with 2 guys working out of a garage. They didn't start life on day 1 as a trillion dollar mega corporation with tens of thousands of employees...

And, here in Germany, it was already a legal requirement for those indie devs to register themselves as a business and to publish their business address and phone number. I had to do it for several years, when I was working as a self-employed developer and consultant. It is just a fact of business life in the EU, the DMA has just moved the requirement from the dev's website and email signature, and local business directory, to also being on the app store, where their products are sold.

 

[PsykX]

You have both a business phone number and private / personal right?

Nope. I'm a part time developer. I do this during week ends and when I have some time.

It's not like owning a second number and address is free or something, it's pretty expensive.

 

[nostradumbass]

Apple started out with 2 guys working out of a garage. They didn't start life on day 1 as a trillion dollar mega corporation with tens of thousands of employees...

You saying the most ignorant and out of context thing imaginable.

The context here is the digital App Store, which the two Steves did not have back in the day. They did not even have an internet to experience tons of nuisance calls and messages.

AND IT IS APPLE WHO DISAGREE WITH THIS PHONE NUMBER NONSENSE

And, here in Germany, it was already a legal requirement for those indie devs to register themselves as a business and to publish their business address and phone

That is in the BUSINESS REGISTER not the App Store. Hardly anyone sees the business register. Lots of people see the App Store and the phone number of the dev are right there when they download from the product page.

You think a little harder next time you post on the internet.

 

[gweedo]

While I am no fan of EU regulations, I don't understand the problem. Get a PO Box and a separate phone number as a cost of doing business, simple as that, those are not very expensive at all.

Why should consumers have zero idea who they are doing business with? Devs certainly want all of consumers information!

display a meaningless address (po box) and a useless phone number... like most every eu regulation, pointless

 

[Big_D]

That is in the BUSINESS REGISTER not the App Store. Hardly anyone sees the business register. Lots of people see the App Store and the phone number of the dev are right there when they download from the product page.

You think a little harder next time you post on the internet.

And on their websites (Impressum) and in their email signature. I had to do that for around 6 years, when I was working as an independent developer and consultant.