{"id":31630,"date":"2021-02-10T16:24:07","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T21:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=31630"},"modified":"2025-04-08T10:04:52","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T14:04:52","slug":"students-developer-account-mistakenly-terminated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/02\/10\/students-developer-account-mistakenly-terminated\/","title":{"rendered":"Student’s Developer Account Mistakenly Terminated"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anne Drewa<\/a> (also: MacRumors<\/a>, tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

A free Indigenous language app developed by a first-year UBC student from Prince Rupert, B.C. is up and running again after Apple mistakenly accused the young developer of dishonest and fraudulent acts.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Eshom says he received an automated email from the tech giant telling him it was terminating his status as an Apple developer pursuant to the Apple Developer Agreement for dishonest and fraudulent acts related to that agreement.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

He says he reached out to Apple multiple times for an explanation, but couldn’t get answers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, of course, he went to the press, and that worked.<\/p>\n\n

\n

Apple says more than a half-million developer accounts were terminated for fraudulent activity last year, which resulted in their apps being removed from sale. But Apple says Eshom’s developer account was regrettably included with the removals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Via Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It’s impossible to intelligently “curate” at this scale. Nobody should have the power.<\/p>

People claim that “at least App Store is better than the wild west”, but that’s false because App Store provides a platform and honeypot for malware.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Outside the App Store, it’s hard for a scammy app to get enough PageRank or traffic to go anywhere. Inside the App Store, instead of PageRank we have ratings and reviews, both of which can be easily faked. No opinions from trusted third parties show up when you search. So it’s actually easier for scams and malware to proliferate if they aren’t caught by App Review.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n