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).
> 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.
> 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.
I was looking for a good counter point to the argument as it didn't feel like blackmail to me, thank you for some insight. After posting I started feeling that this felt more like an "out of court settlement" to me then anything else. Apple had proposed a way to put this behind them and move on (not a good comparison I know that is why I didn't go back and add it after the post).
If a cop pulls you over and finds some drugs, it's not 'an opportunity' when they demand a bribe from you to make it go away. It's corruption/extortion.
Maybe it's in your best interest to pay the bribe, but it's more admirable to expose the crooked cops.