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by pieno 1474 days ago
Totally agreed!

It’s a bit ambiguous, but the Apple App Store guidelines seem to require you to be able to opt-out from marketing push notifications, while still keeping other notifications.

From guideline 4.5.4: “Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app’s UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages. (..)” [0]

The developer/user experience guidelines also recommend to have a clear screen to opt-in and out of different types of notifications, and never to abuse privileges (e.g. send marketing notifications with a “time critical” flag to break through focus mode etc.).

I really hated Uber Eats when I thought they were abusing their notification privileges to send spam. But I recently found out that they do allow you to opt out of marketing notifications while still allowing order-related notifications (although they really are pushing it (pun intended) by sending at least two post-delivery notifications asking for tips and ratings, which could easily wait until I actually open the app again or at least be limited to just one delivery confirmation notification). Not sure if they are asking for clear opt-ins for new customers (they probably assumed opt-in based on some general consent I gave before this Apple policy came into effect).

[0] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#app...

[1] https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline... (“Sending Marketing Notifications” at the end)

1 comments

App Store guidelines are only enforced when it's convenient for Apple. This clause has been routinely ignored and even Apple themselves broke it several times. There's no official way to report violations either.