> 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.
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.
EDIT: The difference being, Apple says YES / NO to every app, and every app always goes through the process, unlike policing traffic violations. If Apple is not being inconsistent, they need to say why.
Either way, in this case they blocked a developer that was making what sure as hell looks like spyware to me, I'm not convinced this is a bad thing.
Also, you absolutely do need a license to operate a car. Probably not a good metaphor for your case.
I personally think all such apps should be blocked. What bothers me is the inconsistency, or the opaqueness that means we cannot determine whether or not there is an inconsistency.
The app he made in our example is privacy degrading with control and abuse likely being its best feature. He took his shot.
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.