Apple Updates App Store Guidelines To Permit Devs To Contact Customers About Other Payment Methods

TechCrunch's Sarah Perez writes about the new set of App Store Guidelines that Apple introduced today: One of the changes is the result of a previously announced settlement agreement with a class of U.S. app developers. It clarifies that developers are allowed to communicate with their customers about other payment methods available outside their app. Related to this, another new guideline explains that apps may request customer information like name and email, but the request must be optional for the user and shouldn't prevent them from using the app. The third guideline is unrelated to legal action, and simply details how developers can use a new App Store feature, called in-app events, which rolls out next week.

Specifically, Apple deleted a clause from guideline 3.1.3 which had previously said developers were not permitted to use information obtained within their app to target individual users outside of the app to use purchasing methods other than Apple's own in-app purchases. The old rule had also said this would include sending out emails to the address on file obtained when the customer signed up for the app. With this clause gone, developers are no longer barred from those sorts of communications. Apple also added a new section to guideline 5.1.1 (x) which explains further how developers may go about requesting user contact information. It says: "Apps may request basic contact information (such as name and email address) so long as the request is optional for the user, features and services are not conditional on providing the information, and it complies with all other provisions of these guidelines, including limitations on collecting information from kids."

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[Ed Tice]

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Re:

[shanen]

Why the lack of interest on Slashdot in this potentially significant story?

With a 'sound', if jovial FP, to boot.

(I look at the soon-to-fade-away stories for two reasons: (1) Funny comments in the long discussions, and (2) Reasons for lack of interest in the stories with short discussions.)

Re:

[Brandano]

Possibly because it's very hard for a strange category of recently joined member to spin this as a win for Cupertino.

Re:

[shanen]

Eh? Care to explain?

Re:

[Brandano]

There's been a flurry of comment battles on recent articles about the Apple vs. Epic lawsuit. High digit ID's on both sides, one arguing that Apple won because Epic was sentenced to reimburse apple of lost profits for the few weeks that Epic skipped their payment process, the other arguing that Epic won because Apple was also forced to stop blocking third parties that used external payment methods in their app store. I suspect that Epic can pocket this "loss".

Re:

[shanen]

Now I think I see, or sort of see, the attempted joke, but I still don't get the lack of interest. Maybe the specific story was a dupe I missed? And I probably should have changed the Subject, too?

Intersting to see what this causes

[luvirini]

Both in terms of payment options and other communications.

The Payment options have been pretty funky before, as example I use Libon for phone calls, I had to log into Libon once on an android phone in order to then be able to buy credits at their website after that at about 25-27% discount. Hopefully in future similar workarounds are not needed.

The things about name and emails being optional and the app still having to work without is specially interesting, as quite many apps today require you to have email

Re:

[startxxx1]

The emails must be optional thing is a new draconian move - until now you could get away without implementing support for AppleID login - now you can't.