Stifleritos wrote:
Sounds to me like Apple is saying that you can no longer force users to sign in to use your app. Does anyone know how this guideline should actually be interpreted?
You are thinking about it completely backwards. Lawsuits have forced Apple to allow more scam apps in the store. This change allows more apps to ask for your personal information.
This has nothing to do with apps that require users to sign in. It doesn't sound like this would have any impact on your company. First of all, you have a company. Secondly, you have to maintain a database of users. That is relatively expensive and probably wouldn't be used for malicious purposes.
The idea behind this (now defunct) rule is (was) to prevent truly malicious apps from asking for people's personal information, like e-mail, phone numbers, names, addresses, credit card numbers, health card numbers, photographs, the works, and then using that information to stalk, harass, and scam. The courts have ruled in favour of the scammers to allow this activity in the App Store. Technically speaking, if Apple finds any malicious activity, they can still take action and ban the app and developer. But malicious developers have already found it easy to evade Apple's scam-detection efforts.
This isn't even a question about Apple reviewers. When Apple reviews an app, any app, they will all be perfectly reasonable. It is only after they are published that malicious apps change their behaviour. Then, the work passes on to Apple's post-review scam-detection efforts, which are considerably less effective than App Review. So you could conceivably have more trouble at App Review time. App Review is never easy, for a variety of reasons. Just be transparent and remember that Apple will be facing an even bigger onslaught of fraudulent apps in the future. All legitimate developers will suffer. It is a great time to be a scammer, eh?
