
Apple Rejecting Apps For Not Showing Ads - slaven
http://blog.tapstream.com/post/75322632058/developing-apple-rejecting-apps-for-not-showing-ads
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sneak
No, Apple is rejecting apps for pulling the advertising unique identifier and
not using it for ads, but instead to spy.

Stop it.

~~~
benjaminfox
Allowing the use of the IDFA by publishers and not by advertisers renders it
useless, since it can no longer be used for attribution. I don't think
conversion tracking - measuring the performance of ads you bought to promote
your app - counts as spying.

~~~
jkrems
Yes, it does. And it allows for shady "install this app to continue"-campaigns
to artificially boost downloads of apps so they appear in top sellers - even
if nobody is actually using them.

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lstamour
Original text from Apple with tips to fix using strings and otool at:
[https://github.com/mixpanel/mixpanel-
iphone/issues/109](https://github.com/mixpanel/mixpanel-iphone/issues/109)

Note that this affects quite a few major platforms:

* parse.com seems to have added it when they added social.framework for Facebook features

* TestFlight uses it for obvious reasons: [https://testflightapp.com/sdk/ios/doc/2.0.0/](https://testflightapp.com/sdk/ios/doc/2.0.0/) \-- they add it even if you forget to.

* Mixpanel affected (with workaround above)

Not affected:

* AFAIK, Google doesn't use it unless you added it as a custom metric with your own custom code (or a third-party integration library)

* Flurry split off their advertising library from their analytics one, in part likely because of this requirement from Apple. If you implement just the analytics, it does not require AdSupport.framework.

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awakeasleep
This might be a shot at Stripe/Braintree/Paypal. All those companies want to
use the IDFA as a part of their scheme to uniquely identify devices/users for
their one touch payment solution, and Apple has been rumored to be getting
into the mobile payments arena.

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andrewflnr
Even if Apple has some nefarious motive for doing this, if it really does have
a beneficial effect on privacy, I find it hard to fault them for it. Can we
save the pitchforks and torches for when they do something actually bad? (that
is a serious question, there are arguments both ways)

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FireBeyond
I’m not sure my understanding of this is correct. It seems to be crying about
the problems this will cause. Ostensibly, it’s saying that there’s a problem
with the identifier for ads being requested in apps that don’t have ads (i.e.
being used as a surrogate identifier).

But, more nefariously (again, if my understanding is correct) it’s saying that
many ad networks rely on this info being passed to advertisers (despite the
policy being that it shouldn’t), and how problematic it’s going to be if Apple
enforces this policy.

If this is the case, my sympathy is close to zero. Not because “advertising =
bad”, but because this was a known no-no. Don’t cry foul when you can’t do
what you were told you couldn’t.

~~~
JangoSteve
I think what they're saying is that for something as simple as analytics (just
an example), apps need some sort of unique identifier for the user, but that
the only unique identifier iOS provides is the advertising ID of the user. Of
course the correct answer is to stop doing any sort of analytics, or anything
else that requires a unique identifier. But the point I think the author is
making is that that is a bad solution.

Of course this all ignores the possibility of creating user accounts or
generating a unique identifier whenever the use installs the app, so maybe
there is something more to it that I'm not understanding. Because I tend to
agree with you, that developers shouldn't be doing something with user data
that is prohibited.

~~~
__david__
> Of course this all ignores the possibility of creating user accounts or
> generating a unique identifier whenever the use installs the app

Which is _exactly_ what Apple recommended when they stopped letting apps get a
hold of the UDID.

I can't think of a really good legit reason for wanting a cross-app unique ID.

~~~
benjaminfox
> I can't think of a really good legit reason for wanting a cross-app unique
> ID.

The use case that's affected the most by this change is that of advertisers
who want to track the performance of ads they buy from publishers, which I
think is a legitimate need. The fact that the IDFA uniquely identifies an iOS
device (unless the user resets it) is a side effect of Apple's implementation
of it; all app advertisers really want is the same kind of first-party
conversion tracking for their apps that's standard everywhere else on the web.

~~~
interg12
Agreed - app advertisers are playing a performance marketing game with their
install ads. This change is going to make user acquisition more tedious in
several ways: \- some networks will become straight CPC, which will be a pain
in the ass to arbitrage to a CPI - there will be a lot of campaign monitoring
required \- other methods of install attribution simply aren't as reliable.
This will affect the eCPMs of in-app advertising that consisted of app-install
demand.

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egb
I got rejected, but I _do_ show ads. My guess is Apple is targeting particular
SDKs/libraries, and so that even apps that are showing ads are getting
flagged. Not sure what the resolution is going to be - still waiting on an
Apple response.

I've got a whole bunch of libs included, several of which use AdSupport. Arg.

~~~
egb
After emailing in, my app got approved, but no information as to why the
rejected me in the first place...

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AugustusLongeye
Hang on, you think Apple are worried about the privacy of end users? I call
shenanigans! There are likely many reasons they're doing this, that is firmly
at the bottom of the list three rooms over entitled "things Apple don't care
about".

~~~
slaven
Well, if you see what happened with UDID and how much kerfuffle there was to
get from there to IDFA it's pretty obvious Apple wants to protect the user.

For a contrast to Android you just need to read this article:
[http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140130170002-11...](http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140130170002-11651253-mobile-
first-is-old-news-think-platform-first)

~~~
hahainternet
> Well, if you see what happened with UDID and how much kerfuffle there was to
> get from there to IDFA it's pretty obvious Apple wants to protect the user.

From my perspective it seems that Apple wants to have access to this data for
iAds, but doesn't want any competition. It's been their normal behaviour
recently, trying to eliminate any possibility of anyone competing with them in
their markets. From wide device bans to price fixing conspiracies.

~~~
interg12
Apple wants to create a monopoly for advertising across the entire Apple
product ecosystem. If they're the only company with install attribution across
apps and devices, they can serve (re)targeted advertising to you on the Apple
TV, your iPad, your iPhone, and Safari, all through the cross-platform iAD.

