LIBRARY REJECTED: OpenFeint (for “no user benefit” Location checks)
It was no surprise that Apple now rejects AdMob apps for this, but here we have examples of OpenFeint being rejected. OpenFeint is primarily a social network, partly masquerading as a high-score system; both aspects have obvious value in location checks. But not enough, according to Apple:
We’ve reviewed your application Battle for Wesnoth: The South Guard 1.3 and determined that because this application does not have Core Location user features but is requesting location data, it violates section 3.3.6 of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement:
…
Applications using Core Location information must provide user benefit and cannot solely be enabled to allow mobile advertisers to deliver targeted advertisements based on user’s location.
A few points of interest here:
- OpenFeint is/was mostly transparent to developers – OpenFeint features are controlled by *OpenFeint*, not by the developer of the app you’re running. Most things come from the OF servers, including the user settings (if I remember correctly – NB: I haven’t checked this recently). Compare this to AdMob, where the developer has direct control over the Location-tracking inside their own source code.
- OF does *additionally* serve ads internally (but it’s mostly a social network, as noted – not an ad network)
- OF is taking it seriously – witness the PR scramble on the linked thread, robustly promising “I will reach out to my contacts at Apple”
- The affected app finally got accepted by Apple – Battle for Wesnoth
- …even after all that, there are still claims of Apple continuing to reject OpenFeint apps
