Application Developer Kosta EleftheriouApple’s lawsuit against its ill-defined App Store policies has been approved by the California Superior Court, despite some modifications.
I now look forward to presenting my case in court, and I am confident that justice will prevail.
But I can’t help but think of all the other developers whose stories we won’t hear: people unable – or unwilling – to sue the world’s biggest company.
— Kosta Eleftheriou (@keleftheriou) January 31, 2022
Seems like big tech companies like Alphabet, Apple, and Meta continue to see lawsuit after lawsuit with each passing month. Which, to be fair, is more than a reasonable compromise for being a multi-million dollar company that absolutely refuses to treat its user base and developers with any form of human dignity. Also, what we tend to forget is that for every lawsuit that manages to make it to court, there are a hundred that never even take off for a number of reasons, and many more are either dismissed by a judge or settled. out of court for a small sum. It is not easy to come up against a multinational company, especially in an advanced capitalist world that actively supports such pillars. Therefore, watching the few people who actually manage to run the bet of paying legal fees, going to court, and then being accepted as legitimate complaints is honestly a sight for sore eyes. Am I expecting a lot from this trial? Probably not, but let’s dive into the details anyway and hope for the best.
The requester is app developer Kosta Eleftheriou, a name I really want to hear spoken out loud to satisfy my own curiosity. Either way, Eleftheriou isn’t new to app development or even big business games: He worked as a software engineer for Pinterest before going his own way. Now the man’s complaints are twofold, both centering on the App Store and its relatively unscrupulous activities. The App Store has been criticized for several days and has even been the subject of another lawsuit from the game development company Epic Games. However, it is not a question of costs; On the contrary, Eleftheriou’s complaints stem from the difficulty of accessing the App Store and the loss he suffered once there.
Eleftheriou’s complaints relate to the fact that its keyboard app, named FlickType, has been removed from the App Store several times without any clear justification being provided each time. Apple simply stated that the product did not meet company standards, and even went so far as to state that keyboard apps for the Apple Watch (which FlickType was geared towards) are not allowed. This last part is absolutely wrong, as many other competitors such as Reddit, WhatsApp and Twitter have their own keyboard apps on the App Store. Eleftheriou’s second complaint is about scammers causing lower profits. After FlickType was finally approved and earned $130,000 in its first month, many copycats stormed the App Store, backed by fake reports and the like. Profits have dropped by $20,000 because of this, and Eleftheriou wants compensation.
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