@daringfireball I have an app that’s beloved but rather niche—and thus far makes no money (though I have ideas). I’m maintaining and improving it as a passion project regardless—and I provide support online—but having to check (and pay for) a new mailbox and phone number are probably deal-breakers.
I suspect the most common use of this contact info by FAR will be spammers and scammers scraping it!
If it turns out this change applies to me, I’ll probably pull my app in the EU, with regret.
@daringfireball the headline sounds like you’re aiming for a “gotcha you privacy hypocrites”, but the consistent theme is consumer protection. As an individual you’re least powerful, so you get privacy protections and get to know who you’re doing business with.
It’s quite common to require businesses addresses and director names to be public. (Sole) trader is a legal category for a single-person business. People operating as traders will know, because they pay taxes as such.
@daringfireball @lapcatsoftware From my reading of the DSA, specifically par (24), it seems that Apple wants to avoid liability of being a platform by making it very clear that each app purchase is a contract with the developer directly, thus forcing devs to become real legal businesses.
That's unlike AppStore™ where customers buy from Apple's subsidiary in Luxembourg or Ireland, and devs have a contract with Apple, not users, therefore only Apple needs to know their business identity.
Daring Fireball
Matt Costello
Jason Snell
Adams Immersive
Kornel
Chancerubbage
Tony West