France threatens EU action over Apple App Store ban | Hacker News Reader

France threatens EU action over Apple App Store ban

reuters.com

15 pointsrecoiledsnake23 comments

Here was my comment on the story 5 days ago. A couple of folks down voted me initially!

"It's all fun and games until an American technology company leverages their market share and business model to decimate a European technology company. A couple more of these and the EU will start dragging them in front of committees with little need to be concerned about a backlash."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5519922

I remember that Comment. I upvoted it then and now too.

Thanks for indulging me my rather public chest beating moment too.

So those scam artists, have some friends at high places to put pressure on Apple?

I hope Apple doesn't give up that easily. It's not that the dumb ministers (as dumb politicians come) understand what kind of bullshit they're protecting. If it was 9m revenue from viagra spam, would they do the same thing - probably.

I honestly don't get why some politician would care. Don't they have other things to worry about? It's weird that they feel like they should take this on. It's not that the economy in EU (and by proxy, France) fucked up and requires attention.

If your business relies on Apple allowing you to charge people money - to spam other people (through push notifications) then my friend, you probably failed your MBA classes... or did really well, honestly I don't know.

So Apple has a track record of unilaterally making poor or wholly irrational decisions about what's allowed to be on their store and what isn't, and you decide that because the one example case being used is a vaguely shady app, obviously the politicians are just bought off by bribes and they're going after Apple because they have friends in high places?

You don't think that it's VAGUELY possible that perhaps Apple exerting their influence to silence speech (in the forms of games, comics, books, etc) and other forms of expression, not to mention outright crushing businesses because they decide they don't like them or because they decide they don't want competition, has upset politicians? You don't think it's VAGUELY possible that perhaps it is actually illegal?

Yeah, sure. Bribery. Got it. Most logical explanation!

P.S. I don't know why you would choose Viagra spam as a point of comparison for an app that people chose to install on their phones. Yes, AppGratis was scummy SEO, almost certainly - but Apple was OK with it being on their store, and approved updates, up until days before it was pulled, and they continue to allow similar apps to operate on their store. They also allow stuff on their store that is BLATANTLY exploitative (IAP-laden games aimed at kids, for example).

Yes, that is what I am saying

Free speech? So what FREE speech does AppGratis do? Help me out here, has Apple blocked Spotify, Dropbox and etc?

Hey, politicians are corrupt by default, so bribery is NOT as shocking as you make it sound like. Not sure why you have a tough time swallowing that pill. Especially EU politicians.

Not saying it's a monetary thing, could be a friends or associations thing. Or that they are interested in that 9m revenue in French taxes. As we both are aware of, France needs that money badly.

Don't play stupid, imagine if Apple let all apps wait for 2-3 months for thorough research before allowing an app to get onboard.

It's easy for you to say that they should have done it from the get go, but things take time.

People reported, Apple had research done and finally could come to the conclusion they are on now.

I can't believe your arguments, you're actually saying that Apple can't change it's mind after finding more evidence.

If you don't have sufficient reading comprehension to realize that my post wasn't a defense of AppGratis, perhaps you shouldn't post multiple paragraphs criticizing arguments I didn't make. 2-3 months of pre-approval? Who on earth would suggest something that stupid? There are way easier ways to solve these problems; Apple doesn't want to solve these problems.

Apple can certainly change their mind. That is not the problem. The problems are, among others: unclear/nonexistent communication, arbitrary and inconsistent enforcement of rules, and anticompetitive behavior.

I don't care if AppGratis ever makes another cent, but Apple should definitely be held to account for their behavior and if this is what it takes for that to happen, so be it.

I am not an Apple fanboy, but I fully support Apple's decision to remove AppGratis from the store.

It is pointless to argue if it was bribery that caused Pellerin to do this, but it is obvious that she is mistaken.

>but Apple was OK with it being on their store, and approved updates, up until days before it was pulled, and they continue to allow similar apps to operate on their store.

Allowing it in the App Store in the first place is a bad decision, but there is no reason they should have not removed it now. They also removed similar apps several months ago.

Researching apps take time. Either they let developers wait months in order to get them onboard or conduct more thorough research retroactively.

The removal itself isn't the problem, the problem is Apple's clear and undisputable track record of:

* Arbitrary and inconsistent enforcement of rules

* Unclear/nonexistent communication with developers

* Blatant anti-competitive behavior

* Backwards, bigoted censorship bordering on outright oppression

* Generally doing things that you won't get away with unless you're the only game in town (which they are)

The point here isn't that AppGratis being pulled somehow merits legal action. The point is that you can easily look at it as the straw that broke the camel's back: Apple has been pulling this shit for a while, and will continue to pull this shit FOREVER unless other parties intervene.

Quit speculating. They weren't spamming viagra, they were promoting apps. As an iOS developer from day 1, who has had to deal with plenty of superfluous demands from Apple to get apps approved, I'm incredibly grateful to the French gov. for pushing back.

I'm an iOS developer as well. Never had issues getting app onboards there, and believe me, some apps did not even deserve to get there.

Quit playing the victim card, Apple does not owe you shit. Switch to Android and smile. After all, you're a pragmatic developer.

Jeez, promoting apps my ass - they were extorting people for sending out spam via push notifications.

If you think Android is any better in this regard, you've missed the point. Maybe we should have just sat back and smiled when 100+ corporations and the US gov worked together to draft SOPA. After all, GoDaddy does not owe me shit.

I'm not concerned with their shady business practices. It takes 5 seconds to uninstall an app, I do it all the time.

Your politicians owe you shit. Your argument is moot.

No I get your point, you want the Appstore to allow you to conduct questionable business. Good call there.

There was plenty of resistance to corporate power in response to SOPA. And it was absolutely justified.

Right, because selling virtual Smurf Gold Coins is totally legit but charging developers for access to a marketing funnel is evil. Give me a break.

The game provides visual entertainment and doesn't extort people. You pay for a game.

I must have missed something. Who the hell was getting extorted by AppGratis?

They were able to get attention from the governement because the french gov is trying to show that it can somehow control the economy. A lot of french are expecting the gov to protect them against the big. This is good PR for the gov at the right time.

From what I understand, this app had 12M users. Is that correct? So for people here to claim it was at all spammy, explain to me why it never had 12M uninstalls and zero users. There must have been value users got from it.

EDIT to kill a typo.

Second edit to add more:

I get a daily email from a service called BookBub. AFAIK, it's basically a similar model to AppGratis. It's pay for placement. Yet every email I discover a legitimately free Kindle book I can download. I understand it's pay-to-place. I don't find it spammy. Do I want to see everything be pay-to-place? Hell no. But to say I can't have BookBub or something else of my own free will -- well, something is just wrong with that thinking.

Furthermore, where were the people who claim it was all spammy BEFORE Apple banned the app?

They had no objection to the app because their dear leaders at Apple had yet to object to the app.

The problem isnt the app itself, or that it's pay to place within the app, or spammy to the users of the app. The problem is that the top apps is heavily based on # downloads, and this app gets lots of downloads. Therefore, it's gaming the top apps.

The app gratis users are cheap, crappy users that provide little value to the advertiser cause they don't spend money. It's all just to chart and get good users from the apple's placement.

And since everyone is doing this, the only way to get in the top apps is to buy one of these services. The minute you stop paying, you drop from the top charts. Really apple needs to fix the app store, or offer sponsored slots there.

[I worked at a company that used app gratis]

Last time Fleur Pellerin decided to put her nose into an American company's policies, France almost ended up forced to use Bing.fr. Guess some politics just won't learn.

"With much power comes much responsibility!" I think that's the piece Apple is missing here. They need to work a little harder before shutting down a $10 million company. It sounds like it was handled unilaterally and at a junior level from what I read - but maybe more will come out in their favor.

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