Gracious Apple No Longer Limiting Your Free Speech With Customers
Cupertino no longer requires you to censor conversation subjects with customers outside of the Apple ecosystem. How nice of them.
There’s a significant change hidden inside Apple’s latest update of App Store rules. Previously you were restricted in what you were allowed to mention to your own customers in conversations outside of the Apple ecosystem. That clause is now gone. You can now strike up a conversation outside your app, and mention that you have different payment methods available. But there’s more to it than that.
Apple’s App Store rules have always been something of a minefield, and my work often feels like that of a lawyer. There’s an ever-changing set of rules to learn, but more than that, experience is everything. You get to know which rules you can break, and which are sacred. Despite Apple’s progress in this area, the review process is still conducted haphazardly. There remain many cases where members of their review team simply apply the rules incorrectly, and it’s worth standing your ground. And there are other cases where standing your ground is a lost cause and you have no hope.
Where the law analogy ends, of course, is that Apple have the final say.
Clause 3.1.3: Keep schtum about payment methods
Some of those rules can’t even be tested at review time. Clause 3.1.3 was one of them. It said:
Developers cannot use information obtained within the app to target individual users outside of the app to use purchasing methods other than in-app purchase (such as sending an individual user an email about other purchasing methods after that individual signs up for an account within the app).
Essentially that meant you couldn’t mention other ways of paying for your product or service, in any conversation with a user, if they arrived at your door via the App Store.
Something feels a little legally unenforceable about that one. I’m not sure even an international Goliath like Apple can prevent you from having free conversation with your own customer, when you’re outside the walls of said Goliath. But I’m not an actual lawyer.
Ostensibly this clause applied even if you were discussing a service that was exempt from app store purchases. Typically anything which results in a physical delivery is one such exemption. If you sell t-shirts through an iOS app, for example, then you can’t use in-app payments. But clause 3.1.3 supposedly meant you couldn’t email the user mentioning that. It’s a bit odd.
Obviously it’s hard for Apple to find out that you’re doing this, so the rule was largely unenforceable. During Apple’s review, the reviewer doesn’t sign up using a real email address or phone number, so they wouldn’t be able to see any out-of-band follow-ups anyway.
But it wouldn’t have been impossible for Apple to find out. And if they did, what was the punishment? The same as any rule-breaking in the “sacred” category (of which payment rules are firmly part). You’ll get removed from the store.
The iron grip relaxes, just a little
It’s surely no coincidence that this rule change comes at a time when Apple’s App Store rules are under much greater scrutiny. They are the subject of a number of ongoing court battles in many jurisdictions, most notably against Epic Games, for monopolistic practices.
Because monopolistic is surely what they are. If a single company writes rules to make their own technology the sole method of commerce permitted with a group of people — and takes 15%–30% in the process — then that’s pretty much the definition of a monopoly.
So it’s good for everyone in the world, except the one Goliath, that these rules are being challenged. And it’s great that these challenges are bearing fruit. Again, I’m no lawyer, but to my untrained eye it looks like Apple are removing some of the most egregious clauses here.
But it’s not all good news
Apple giveth, Apple taketh away, just like the Bible says.
A new rule has now appeared:
5.1.1 (x). “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.”
So all email addresses now have to be optional. Funnily enough, one way of permitting sign-in to your app without requiring an email address is by using Apple’s own sign in method.
It’s hard to see this as isolated from the rule change above. On one hand you have Apple finally allowing you free flowing conversation with your customers if you know their details. On the other hand, you have a rule which says that your customers now no longer have to provide those details. Call me cynical, but it’s hard to ignore the link, especially as the changes were made in the exact same update. Say what you want to your customers, but you can’t get contact details for them.
Because that way Apple can claw back a little of the grip they lost, and they can do so in the name of privacy. Expect to see the subtle but pervasive guiding hand of Apple’s PR machine getting into action on that. It’s not about them being the only ones to hold your customers’ details, they will say, it’s about user privacy.
So, restrictions are slowly being lifted, but we still have a long way to go. As ever I’m watching the various legal cases with interest. In the meantime, despite the hypocrisy in the present rule changes, they are actually positive in general. Time will tell whether those fighting the monopoly can achieve even greater gains, but I do expect to see more ground given as time goes on.
