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The platform has apparently been selling its ability to drive titles up the App Store rankings, taking payments from developers to promote their apps — and arguably therefore ‘gaming the App Store charts’ – which is evidently why it has fallen foul of Apple’s T&Cs. Apple tweaked its developer guidelines last September, adding a clause that states: “Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected.”
AppGratis has confirmed that Apple banned it for violating this clause. Its use of push notifications for advertising promotions/direct marketing purposes has also got it in trouble with Cupertino — specifically, Apple said it broke another App Store clause which states: “Apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising, promotions, or direct marketing of any kind.”
Reading between the lines, Apple appears unhappy that AppGratis’ behaviour was distorting and undermining merit-based App Store rankings. Last week AllthingsD cited sources close to Apple who said it was troubled that AppGratis’ business model appeared to favor developers who have the financial means to pay for exposure. “The App Store is intended as a meritocracy,” a source familiar with Apple’s thinking was quoted as saying.
From the outside looking in, AppGratis’ violation of the App Store T&Cs seems pretty clear – although there is some blurring of the line between app discovery and app promotion. The main component of Apple’s actions that could be questioned here is why it took so long to clamp down on what AppGratis was doing, having previously allowed it to operate. Perhaps Cupertino was monitoring it to see how the business evolved.
We’ve contacted AppGratis with questions and requests for comment. We’ll update this story with any response. Update: See below for responses from AppGratis’ CEO. At the time of writing, Apple — also contacted for comment — has not yet responded.
Last week AppGratis CEO Simon Dawlat posted a very long-winded blog about how the ban is unfair, which you can read in full here. The gist of which appears to be that ‘Apple used to be ok with us, but now it’s banning us’. Dawlat’s explanation does not, however, make any mention of paid promotions being part of AppGratis’ business model.
Soliciting payments from developers in exchange for high App Store rankings is something AppGratis has done, according to Conor O’Connor, CEO of discount hotel app Hot.co.uk. He told TechCrunch that, after noticing his app was being beaten by “some really low quality Apps” in the App Store rankings, he contacted AppGratis in April 2012. “I started to investigate. This lead me to talk directly to Simon Dawlat, CEO of App Gratis, where I was promised the number one position in Spain for 2€ per download and a minimum spend of 45,000€,” said O’Connor.
“I was hesitant as I was unsure if all of their downloads were legitimate. I asked repeatedly if they were using automated download mechanisms which he denied. Later in the conversation he admitted they had used bots to inflate their download numbers in the early days.”
Commenting more broadly on the issue of paid app promotions and whether he thinks the app store ban for AppGratis is justified, O’Connor added: ”I don’t want to see any startup fail and 45 people lose their jobs but it shouldn’t be possible to just buy your way to the top of app store rankings. It should be the best apps win not just the better financed. I think what Apple did is overall a good thing for developer and start up ecosystems.”
Hot.co.uk told TechCrunch it was also contacted in late September 2012 by another sales person from AppGratis — “offering 15,000 downloads for 1.2€ each”.
We’ve put O’Connor’s comments to Dawlat and will update this story with any response from him or AppGratis. Update: Dawlat has sent an initial response via email, denying the company has used ”any shady and/or incentivized tactics to grow our userbase”, saying: “We have clearly stated that we have never used any shady and/or incentivized tactics to grow our userbase. NEVER. NEVER. NEVER.”
We’ll update this story with further comment from AppGratis as we get it. See: Update 2.
As you might expect, France’s digital industry minister Fleur Pellerin has spoken up in support of AppGratis, describing Apple’s actions as ”extremely brutal”, unilateral and “without explanation”, and calling on Cupertino to “behave ethically“.
Update 2: Here’s Dawlat’s response in full — which rebuts criticisms of the paid promotion model by saying the business focuses on editorial app picks to find “gems”, coupled with discounts it has negotiated with app publishers and that its sponsored app slots, sold on a cost-per-install basis, are a “market standard”:
