Surely it is in the companies register regardless? It is a business, not a blackops site...
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Developers Now Required to Share Phone Number and Address on EU App Store to Meet 'Trader' Requirement
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On the contrary, everyone wins. Quality apps by quality companies that are properly registered, accountable for privacy laws, etc. I think it is great that some are choosing to leave, to me, that is quite telling about their intentions in the first place.
You don't get it. Companies of that size are already easy to find and have no problem with their addresses etc. being widely available. Read the thread about who's being thrown under the bus by this.
Nobody is thrown under the bus. It is a message and opportunity to get “your” (not you personally, of course) act together; why should we trust our data with someone who doesn't even want to identify who they are and where they are from?
Because there are situations where it simply doesn't matter. Stealing data is something that the App Store guidelines and checks already prevent, and having the address of some poor indie developer doesn't make it so a billion-dollar lawsuit will go anywhere.
And thanks for the patronizing "getting your act together" to people. How stupid of one-person indie developers not simply renting some office space, get a lawyer, secretaries and security personnel, let alone incorporating as an LLC. Are they stupid or what?
It’s not hard setting up a PO Box. And why wouldn’t you want users to actually be able to contact the devs? Apple have been stopping people from doing this for years not for any privacy reasons, it’s simply to stop developers offering users cheaper offers outside the AppStore
Yes, and it will just go to voicemail, so how does this law help anyone? As for the address requirements, is that so my app's users can write me a letter?
I offer support via email, a user forum and a help desk, all linked from the app itself, the app's website and the app store listing. I wish this law took into account how easy to contact I already am before adding requirements for additional support channels that I don't have the resources to offer.
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Apple has not once stopped anyone from “being able to contact the devs.” Did Apple stop developers from advertising that prices were cheaper elsewhere in their App Store descriptions? - yep (and IMO perfectly justified in doing so). Did they stop developers from advertising lower prices in their app? Also yes (and IMO not at all justified in doing so).
But Apple requires developers to link to their website, and has a big “App Support” button on each app’s page in the App Store. So Apple has never prevented people from talking to developers.
Again, requiring a hobbyist who is maybe making enough annually to pay the Developer fee to choose between “giving everyone in the EU my home address”, “spending hundreds/thousands of dollars to set up a LLC, PO Box, and second phone line” or “not offering my app in the EU” is the height of idiocy that literally harms everyone from user to developer to Apple to countries now not getting tax revenue. But, not unexpected coming from EU bureaucrats who think that if the Microsoft has kernel access to Windows everyone else should have kernel access too.
I don't like some movies and music and I should be to call and visit the creators at their homes.
You truly are not grasping the concepts being discussed here. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but you have been and do not understand what this all entails for developers. I and we (the rest of the posts from other devs and people that seem to grasp what the thread is about and what you are asking) do understand and this is ridiculous, expensive, time-consuming on unnecessary tasks, (even more expenses), more licenses/business formation and who knows how far this list will keep extending.
Once the EU does something, they don't seem to turn back. It's a one-way street with their laws. So if anything, the list will only grow in the coming years.
If you worked in this industry, you would think very differently. You would also thing very differently if you were not in the EU regions, which I'm just assuming you are from you comments. If I missed you mentioning living somewhere else, sorry).
And like I previously mentioned, GDPR on its own has been a complete failure of the EU and implemented terrible. Your region seems to think it's ok to sue other companies for the smallest, non-issues. And the EU fully backs those cases. It is quite literally a nightmare to deal with the EU region, and NOT one that most smaller devs or companies will do in the future.
Yes, that will happen. Unless the EU gets its act together.
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Do you actually really believe that all apps are developed by trillion dollar corporations, or are you being sarcastic ?
i’m going to go with sarcasm because the alternative would be mind boggling…
When you are an M365 administrator you go to your MS Team admin screens. You can enable it there. That is if you have a business subscription of course
Skype offes it as well for a small fee. Much more available for non-Office365 business accounts.
The cynic in me is wondering if this isn’t the EU bureaucrats being played by people smarter ( and more evil ) than them.
The irony of this , is it accomplishes the opposite of what EU wants to be known for, protecting consumers and avoiding monopolies. If i was a multi-million dollar software company, i would absolutely push in favor of this law : this will decimate a very large number of indie developers, leaving mostly large businesses to thrive, with much, much less competition.
The Apple (or Google) Appstore should have legitimate ways to contact you, verify and know who you are, yes ( especially to prevent malware from being spread ), but there is no reason most of this info should be public.
If you’re selling your software directly on your website and handling credit card info and other personal details directly, then yes, detailed info should be published. But the Appstore abstracts all that and keeps the information to themselves. It is not transmitted to the devs.
All software companies since the advent of the Internet were contactable by email only ( and ironically, the biggest one like Google or Facebook can’t be contacted at all). Not sure how having the personal homes and phone numbers of sole developers on the Appstore is gonna help in anyway,…
The irony of this , is it accomplishes the opposite of what EU wants to be known for, protecting consumers and avoiding monopolies. If i was a multi-million dollar software company, i would absolutely push in favor of this law : this will decimate a very large number of indie developers, leaving mostly large businesses to thrive, with much, much less competition.
The Apple (or Google) Appstore should have legitimate ways to contact you, verify and know who you are, yes ( especially to prevent malware from being spread ), but there is no reason most of this info should be public.
If you’re selling your software directly on your website and handling credit card info and other personal details directly, then yes, detailed info should be published. But the Appstore abstracts all that and keeps the information to themselves. It is not transmitted to the devs.
All software companies since the advent of the Internet were contactable by email only ( and ironically, the biggest one like Google or Facebook can’t be contacted at all). Not sure how having the personal homes and phone numbers of sole developers on the Appstore is gonna help in anyway,…
The guidance seems to indicate if you make money you are a trader; there were no "less than xx Euro" exclusions. A lot of hobbyists could find themselves casught up in this.
Better yet, a message to say contact via website/email and no voicemail.
I might start a Limited company in the UK, employ myself as a developer (whilst also being employed by another company as my main job), write my apps, charge my company for my time, and have that company make a loss every time because the income is lower than my cost, then write it all off against my income tax from my actual job.
Yes, sure and there are plenty of VoIP providers but it does vary by region and for legality. In the UK all phone lines are going to VOIP where not already, the service I’m using for a geographical number is only lien £1.20 per month. But in the Netherlands this is not possible, so there I set it up officially through Microsoft 365 for each of my LLC type companies.
The company details of the production companies can easily be viewed in the relevant companies registers. Just like the details of the PSC and UBOs.
Write what off? That still cost you money. Why not put the same amount of effort in to have the company actually make money?
The DSA makes mention of this in its examples, making note that if making money from your app doesn't make you a trader if it's not your day job / it does not represent significant income. Of course, what "significant income" is is something that you would need to assess for yourself, as every case is different. I'd go as far as to say a dev breaking even on their app is well in the clear - they make money, but none of their revenue is profit.
No; being loss-making does not make you not-a-trader. Look at all the startup businesses that make a loss for the first few years before eventually reaching profitability (or going bust).
I do hope no-one is actually using these comments to determine how to answer the "are you a trader?" question!
I don't think anyone has actually posted the definition in the legislation yet, so here it is:
‘trader’ means any natural person, or any legal person irrespective of whether it is privately or publicly owned, who is acting, including through any person acting in his or her name or on his or her behalf, for purposes relating to his or her trade, business, craft or profession;
Yes, you may need some additional guidance to understand what some of that means in borderline cases, but surely for most developers it's pretty clear.
I don’t know about UK tax laws but you are likely not to pull that off in the US.
And the guidance I posted above could easily encompass a hobbyist developer. It really is unclear and will depend on interpretation by the EU and courts; although most small developers cannot afford to go to court.
Apple and other large app stores are likely to err on the side of caution to not get ensnared by the law.
£1.20? Any recommended companies? And how much doe MS Teams number cost?Yup Teams works for me.
In the UK you can get a legal VOIP number (all telephony is now voip) for like a whopping £1.20 per month
Andrew’s and Arnold. They provide landline VoIP numbers. I managed to port my landline from Sky to their VoIP service. Works great with all normal landline features.
Teams is more expensive but has different features and integration. A great choice when you have Microsoft 365 already.
This is probably not a good forum to discuss this because it gets too much into culture and politics, but this and other ham-fisted measures (such as the upcoming one on security) don't necessarily stem from anyone being evil, but rather completely ignorant, out of touch, and not considering the effects.
If you look at Thierry Breton, it's also an issue of putting unhinged power-drunk lunatics on a mission in the positions that decide on these matters instead of even-handed and more analytical people. The fact that he got fired over some of his more pompous behaviors (and the way he "resigned" was really something to behold) gives me some hope that the EU will be somewhat more measured in how it implements some of these IMHO ill-advised measures and penalties.
It's easy to think that some outsider(s) are playing the EU deliberately to keep it a technological backwater, but the culture there hasn't really changed much over the decades since tech became a thing. It doesn't need any outside help to hold itself back.