[ubertaco]

I've only just run across this. It looks like the story here is:

1. Guy publishes paid app to iTunes

2. App is really good, gets a ton of good reviews

3. Apple decides those reviews must be fraudulent, and pulls his app from the store and tells the guy he has to publicly admit that he committed review fraud to get his app reinstated.

4. People who have bought the app can't download it, guy can't do anything to make his own app available anymore without making a false confession and harming his own reputation.

This sort of heavy-handed-but-uncareful approach to "curation" is consistent with my experience publishing to the iOS app store.

[joeberon]

What actually happened:

1. Guy publishes good paid app and gets a tonne of good reviews

2. He helps out a relative by buying an apple developer account for them, giving them a machine to test with

3. Relative also uses same "com.kapeli.*" bundle ID

4. Relative decides to buy 1000 fraudulent reviews

5. Apple tells the relative to stop posting fraud reviews, who refuses

6. Apple terminates both developers accounts since they are all the same information (they look like the same person, same credit card, bank account, test machine, and bundle ID)

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/56uque/apple_dash_de...

[funkydata]

The accounts were linked (same devices, same credit card number): https://london.kapeli.com/downloads/Apple_Call.m4a (edit: direct link to the phone call with the Apple representative)

As much as they tend to piss me off for other things. I don't see any wrongdoing from them. It's like accusing them of cutting off the payments to a bakery that operates from the same bank account to that of a drug dealer.

Also that kind of blackmail: "You're sure you want that statement to become public?" is plain stupid.

[joeberon]

Why is the developer being so dense? Just being difficult for no reason because he has a stick up his ass.

"You're sure you want that statement to become public" it literally makes no sense...

All he's done is posting that Apple call has burnt every bridge he had with them, and made Apple look great. Literally they sound very professional on that call and very willing to help him, and instead he is just being unnecessarily difficult.

[spacehunt]

Actually I wouldn't be so sure as to who burnt the bridge first. He posted the recording after Apple went public with their side of the story.

What happened to the supposed blog post? Why did Apple go to the press without getting back to him on the draft?

[cocktailpeanuts]

No one knows what happened between the phone call and Apple's press release. So we can't make judgment on that.

That said, I was amazed how that guy from Apple was being so patient with this guy being so immature. The Apple guy was trying his best to sort this out, but for every word he said, this Dash guy would keep complaining. This phone call could have ended in 30 seconds but took over 7 minutes because all this guy did was complain (which I think he did for the purpose of making this recording), and I don't even know what you would get from complaining that way when the other person was trying to help you. I would have been pissed if I was that Apple guy.

[pkamb]

They weren't linked in the UI. They were "linked" in Apple's backend system according to secret heuristics. The dev had no idea they were linked, so I hate seeing people stating "the accounts were linked" as if that's something he should have known or anticipated.

How many random devs and accounts have been secretly "linked" to my account? I have no idea.

[st3v3r]

That's extremely naive, to think that accounts with the same CC are not linked.

[okket]

I find it hard to believe that this happened without his knowledge. It was his credit card. It was his identifier. I can not imagine he never searched the store for lookalikes or his identifier, etc.

See https://software.com/publisher/kapeli

Just to clarify: On Friday my position was "I have no reason to believe Kapeli is lying and every reason to believe that Apple made a mistake". But after reading and listening to various sources I can not defend this position any more. It makes me sad.

[falcolas]

Don't forget:

7. Apple offers to reinstate the developer account, iff the user makes a post pointing out how this wasn't Apple's fault.

[spacehunt]

> 3. Relative also uses same "com.kapeli.*" bundle ID

Just saying: anyone can freely create any App ID they want. I just successfully created "com.google.android.nougat" as a test.

[st3v3r]

I'm fairly sure you don't have the same user and CC on file as they do.

[spacehunt]

But it proves bundle IDs can only be treated as circumstantial evidence at most.

[st3v3r]

So you combine that with the same CC number on file, and the same development machines, and now you have a very good chance the same person is responsible.

[okket]

Do you expect to use this identifier to make money (in a fraudulent way) and Google not caring over several years?

[Crosseye_Jack]

In addition to what joeberon said. After this happened Apple were prepared to welcome him back to the App Store after Apple had learnt of all the facts. Kapei had gone public about this account nuke (which at times is the only way to raise the issue, I remember the times I've had to deal with Googles Support for the play store shudder) and while he didn't know all the details on why his account was nuked the issue has gained some notable press in the dev circles. Because of this Apple had asked for him to release a blog post explaining what had happened, that Apple had correctly detected fake reviews on one account, that account was linked in a couple of ways to him so when Apple nuked the one account they nuked the other along with it and that's is why his account was terminated.

Now in my opinion that is a fair request and if I were in his shoes I would of done just that because I can see how Apple could of tied the two accounts together. Others have said that it's Apple Blackmailing him "Post a blog post if you want your account back" and I can see their logic.

Apple don't want to be seen as they made a mistake because they did detect fake reviews and took account against the account volating their polices. But they also want it known why his account was caught up in this mess.

Were Apple right in nuking both accounts that they deemed were linked together? Should Apple made contact with all parties (it seems the accounts did have at least differnt contact information as he said he got no notice off Apple, Apple say they did contact the dev who's app had the fake reviews) before terminating accounts? Should a public statement explaining the incident be a requirement of reinclusion to the App Store

These are questions I have asked myself and have yet to come to a firm decision on myself.

[pkamb]

> Now in my opinion that is a fair request and if I were in his shoes I would of done just that because I can see how Apple could of tied the two accounts together.

He did do that though. He wrote a [blog post draft][1] that mentioned the "linked account" and sent it in to them for review.

Rather than respond to or approve his blog post draft email, Apple went behind his back to the press with statements that omitted all of the "linked account" circumstances and painted him as a legit scammer.

[1]: https://kapeli.com/apple_draft

[Crosseye_Jack]

And sadly we may never know why Apple did that. Apple's statement was released on Monday iirc and then Bogdan released his side to the story afterwards.

Was Apple's release written up before Bogdan's conversation with them on Friday/Saturday (And no one told Tom that the situation had changed) or did something else happen between then and Monday to change Phil's mind?

[funkydata]

Have you listened to the phone call?

[Crosseye_Jack]

Yes. Well the snippet of the call that was released on his blog anyway.

[funkydata]

There is not blackmailing from Apple. They are offering him a chance to wipe his slate clean if he publicly (since he was the one to go public) acknowledges that what Apple did was justified (and it was).

He has to now decide what's more important: his pride or his revenue (https://web.archive.org/web/20150103225308/http://blog.kapel...), it's that simple.

[Crosseye_Jack]

> Others have said that it's Apple Blackmailing him "Post a blog post if you want your account back" and I can see their logic.

I'm not saying Apple did blackmail him, just stating what others on this site have said do me. Personally listening to the call I would of made the blog post, not because I thought Apple were blackmailing me but because I can see Apple's Point of View in this matter and that it had stirred things up.

But it had been pointed out to me that the blog post being a condition of having the account reinstated (and Apple ideally wanting to look over a draft of that post first) could be taken as Apple blackmailing him and its hard to argue against that point. And that's why I bring up the question in my post "Should a public statement explaining the incident be a requirement of reinclusion to the App Store?" (Whoops it appears I missed off the ? in that post, but it was meant as a question).

I'm going to give the Dev the benefit of the doubt for a moment when they said they got very little information out of Apple was to why it was closed. [1]

> A few hours ago I received a “Notice of Termination” email, saying that my account was terminated due to fraudulent conduct. I called them again and they said they can’t provide more information.

The first initial publication of the issue was that he had very little information to go off, he had been accused of fraudulent conduct, he believed that he had not done any thing fraudulent and Apple said the matter was closed.

If he believed he was in the right after that you have very few options open to you and as been shown in the past (and in my experience with Google) going public can be one of the ways to get a 2nd set of eyes on the issue. At the very least he would have to explain to his users why they can no longer update/download his app from the place they had purchased it from.

In this case getting that 2nd set of eyes on the issue as did get the ball moving again so I'm not going to hold anything against any one who has to use the tactic of going public (Though imo it has to be done carefully as it can be the nuclear option but if the other side has already used theirs you are often left with little other option. But it has to be done carefully because we have seen it used when the dev has been at fault).

I can see why Apple would like a statement clearing up what had happened but the "blackmailing" argument is should it be a requirement?

Again personally if I was in his shoes I would of made the post anyway, I wouldn't of seen it as a "condition" because I can see why Apple deemed the 2 accounts as linked and I would like to explain to my users what the mix up was, because after going public they are bound to ask anyway.

[1] https://blog.kapeli.com/apple-removed-dash-from-the-app-stor...

EDIT: When I say "they are bound to ask anyway." I was referring to my users, not Apple.

[eridius]

> But it had been pointed out to me that the blog post being a condition of having the account reinstated (and Apple ideally wanting to look over a draft of that post first) could be taken as Apple blackmailing him and its hard to argue against that point.

No it's not. Nothing about this even comes close to blackmail. Blackmail is demanding payment under threat of doing something bad. This is the complete opposite. This is Apple offering the developer an opportunity that Apple doesn't need to offer, in return for a very simple blog post basically explaining that Apple's offer does not mean Apple's original account termination was in error. This is no more blackmail than selling you an item for $10 is blackmail.