

Airpush are quite happy to support developers who want to deceive their users. - andybak

(Airpush are a controversial company that creates ad software that pushes ads to the Android notification bar usually used for new email and message notifications. Often users don't know which app they have to uninstall to get rid of them)<p>Live Chat Transcript:<p>Me: What are your guidelines for notifying end-users about notification area ads?<p>You are now speaking with Lisa of Sales.<p>Lisa: Hello<p>Me: Hi<p>Lisa: Welcome to Airpush
Lisa: Are you a developer or advertiser?<p>Me: developer<p>Lisa: Great
Lisa: Regarding your question, you can which users will receive your ad and that too how often
Lisa: adjust*<p>Me: How does a user know which app is sending the ads?<p>Lisa: It will be reflecting your developer's dashboard once you start listing your apps<p>Me: i.e. User X updates a dozen apps and suddenly starts getting notification ads. How do they know which app is creating them?
Me: I'm talking about end users here
Me: not developers or advertisers<p>Lisa: ok
Lisa: There is an API key through which you can control the user engagements
Lisa: by a push notofication ad<p>Me: I don't understand how that sentence relates to my question.<p>Lisa: in this case, the users will receive the ad any time an ad is pushed to a device, whether or not the user actually views the ad or not.<p>Me: I asked how a user knows which app triggered an ad.<p>Me: are ads labelled with the originating app name?<p>Lisa: He will be receiving it in a push notification tray<p>Me: are ads labelled with the originating app name?<p>Lisa: Just give me a moment. let me check<p>Me: To repeat an earlier example - User X updates a dozen apps and suddenly starts getting notification ads. How do they know which app is creating them?<p>Lisa: for each app they need to setup airpush sdk so they will get the report data in their airpush controlpanel<p>Me: That doesn't answer my question. Do you understand what I'm asking you?
Me: Imagine I am a user.
Me: I install several apps and one of them contains Airpush.
Me: I suddenly get notification ads and want to know which app is creating them. How can I tell?
Me: Are you still there?<p>Lisa: It depends on the app setting and cannot control that
Lisa: And the ads are not labelled with the originating app name?<p>Me: If a user dislikes the ads - is there any way for him to know which app caused it? I'm worried I'll get bad ratings.<p>Lisa: No 
Lisa: The user will not know<p>Me: Hopefully users won't know it's my app that's doing it so they won't uninstall my app.<p>Lisa: No don't worry about that. 
Lisa: Here you can also benefit through inactive users as you can configure your settings to deliver ads to users who haven't used an app for X days<p>Me: And they won't know it's me?<p>Lisa: No not at all.<p>Me: Cool.
Me: OK. You seem quite happy to support developers who knowingly spam their users. Do you mind if I publish a transcript of this conversation so other people can see how little regard you have for end-users?
Me: Hopefully it will hasten the speed at which your nasty company goes out of business<p>Lisa: Surely it will not.<p>Me: It's a very revealing conversation.<p>Me: Thank-you for being so candid.<p>Lisa: But I believe we maintain our privacy<p>Me: Who's privacy?<p>Lisa: And as long as we receive good responses, we will definitely look up to everyone's reputation<p>Me: Do you receive good responses from end-users?<p>Lisa: Yes definitely.<p>Me: Like all the users of APN Droid who have been leaving 1 star reviews and complaints on the Market?<p>Lisa: Anyways you can download our SDK and start listing your apps if you are happy with it.<p>----------------------
Your party has left this session.
----------------------
======
spiffworks
Google needs to seriously start cleaning house in the Market. Given that most
Android phones out there can sideload, there won't even be that much of a
backlash. I suspect the only reason they aren't already doing this is because
they have an organisational distaste for manual screening. The sooner they fix
the market, the healthier the Android ecosystem.

------
Drakim
This blows my mind, but I guess I'm naive when it comes to how sleazy people
can be.

I love Android, and I don't want it to be known to the general public as the
virus and spyware ridden OS on smartphones.

~~~
dpritchett
Looks like Android needs a curated distribution, the Ubuntu of smartphones.

Wait, why isn't Canonical already on this?

~~~
Macha
Wasn't that the idea behind the Amazon appstore? Bringing an Apple-esque
restricted store to Android to compete with Google's free for all market?

------
mattgreenrocks
It's Windows all over again, with apps sticking themselves in the tray
unnecessarily, coming bundled with popups, and wanting updates every 3 days.
Google and Apple need to draw hard and fast limits on every one of these
common resources and also consider banning apps that abuse notifications to
deliver ads.

Because this isn't innovation, it is exploitation.

~~~
brudgers
I think the comparison to Windows is a stretch because Windows does not push
ads in the system tray and because anything in the system tray is generally
identifiable to the user and frequently configured with modest effort by the
user as well (though a developer can certainly take steps to make it a royal
pain in the ass - printer manufacturers come to mind).

~~~
mattgreenrocks
The examples used are, but these sorts of user exploitation in the name of
'innovation' and 'branding' smell exactly the same as in years past. They
illustrate a complete lack of empathy (and subsequently, taste) on the part of
the developers, piss off users, and generally drive the perception of the
platform down over the long run.

Printer drivers seem to be nothing more than a sick in-joke as to who can make
the biggest, most useless pieces of software.

------
asherisaac
All -- we respect your feedback and are responding. We are releasing an
emergency update which will make Airpush ads OPT-IN by the users. Users will
be prompted upon install if they want to support the developer by allowing 1
ad/day in their tray.

With this change, as a user would you find Airpush as an acceptable
monetization option for the developer? This makes it purely a user's choice.

Please note we have already offered a "Permissions API" which many developers
are using to create their own opt-in and opt-out procedures, but we are now
taking the additional step of FORCING it in our SDK.

Comments are much appreciated.

~~~
1010011010
No. Ads in the notification area are unacceptable noise -- an abuse of the
system. I would uninstall any app that did it, tell anyone who would listen to
install it and probably scream at my phone for a while if an app started doing
it.

~~~
asherisaac
So because you wouldn't OPT-IN to receive the ads, you think it's fair not to
allow others to opt-in?

We believe that with a solid opt-in in place, users should be able to support
the developer by receiving Airpush ads.

Our mistake was we gave full control to the developers to build custom opt-in
and opt-out using our Permissions API, whereas going forward we will FORCE a
standardized opt-in dialog box.

~~~
1010011010
If I never saw a notification-bar ad, I would not have a problem. The first
time though -- the app gets uninstalled and gets a bad review.

------
kefs
I'm sorry, but airpush is ridiculous, and any developer that chooses to use it
is asking the community to give it's app a bad name.

I also had a conversation with "matt" from airpush when this story broke on
reddit.

<http://pastebin.com/c8cpd5H8>

Needless to say, they've done nothing to refresh their image in the Android
community's eyes.

------
heliodor
I was thinking a few weeks ago about how new advertising models on mobile
would look like. The first thing that came to mind was exactly this: ads in
the notification bar for Android.

Plenty of business models require that the user trade a negative benefit for a
positive benefit. To succeed, you just have to ensure the net value to the
user is positive. Yes, new ways of advertising are jarring at first, but some
people will buy into it and adoption and acceptance start from there.

The company singled out here is clearly implementing this concept very poorly
and possibly causing irreparable damage to this new advertising method, but
it's the company's approach that is problematic, not the method itself.

------
asherisaac
The support rep has given you wrong informaton. We ask all of our developers
to put a notice in the Details page of their app, which APNDroid clearly had
posted for all users to see. We also provide an API for developers to build
custom opt-in and opt-out for the push notification ads.

Some users give bad ratings to many types of ad units, including rich media
ads and full page interstitials. That doesn't mean a developer should avoid
them.

~~~
billmcneale
Not sufficient. Does the notification showing the ad show which application
it's coming from?

As long as you don't implement this, you are being disingenuous.

Not that I really care that much, to be honest: I bet that AirPush will shut
down and be completely forgotten in a matter of months.

------
DroodM
Hey Guys,

At Airpush developers are required to put a notice on their Details page in
the Android Market. Also, when an Airpush ad is sent to the device, the icon
used in the notification bar is your App's icon.

Link - [http://www.airpush.com/faq/#can-users-determine-which-app-
is...](http://www.airpush.com/faq/#can-users-determine-which-app-is-sending-
the-airpush-ads)

------
ScottWhigham
Why is this showing up in "Ask"?

~~~
andybak
Ack - sorry. I think it's because I didn't include a URL. I should have posted
the content elsewhere and a link in HN. I forgot HN doesn't really support
longer form posts like this. In my defence, I'm currently blog-less.

~~~
brudgers
You could edit the title to "Tell HN:"

------
Madsn
Wow thick-headed much? Thanks for sharing, made me laugh.

