HN Explorer

Airpush are quite happy to support developers who want to deceive their users.

53 points by andybak ↗ HN
(Airpush are a controversial company that creates ad software that pushes ads to the Android notification bar usually used for new email and message notifications. Often users don't know which app they have to uninstall to get rid of them)

Live Chat Transcript:

Me: What are your guidelines for notifying end-users about notification area ads?

You are now speaking with Lisa of Sales.

Lisa: Hello

Me: Hi

Lisa: Welcome to Airpush Lisa: Are you a developer or advertiser?

Me: developer

Lisa: Great Lisa: Regarding your question, you can which users will receive your ad and that too how often Lisa: adjust*

Me: How does a user know which app is sending the ads?

Lisa: It will be reflecting your developer's dashboard once you start listing your apps

Me: i.e. User X updates a dozen apps and suddenly starts getting notification ads. How do they know which app is creating them? Me: I'm talking about end users here Me: not developers or advertisers

Lisa: ok Lisa: There is an API key through which you can control the user engagements Lisa: by a push notofication ad

Me: I don't understand how that sentence relates to my question.

Lisa: in this case, the users will receive the ad any time an ad is pushed to a device, whether or not the user actually views the ad or not.

Me: I asked how a user knows which app triggered an ad.

Me: are ads labelled with the originating app name?

Lisa: He will be receiving it in a push notification tray

Me: are ads labelled with the originating app name?

Lisa: Just give me a moment. let me check

Me: To repeat an earlier example - User X updates a dozen apps and suddenly starts getting notification ads. How do they know which app is creating them?

Lisa: for each app they need to setup airpush sdk so they will get the report data in their airpush controlpanel

Me: That doesn't answer my question. Do you understand what I'm asking you? Me: Imagine I am a user. Me: I install several apps and one of them contains Airpush. Me: I suddenly get notification ads and want to know which app is creating them. How can I tell? Me: Are you still there?

Lisa: It depends on the app setting and cannot control that Lisa: And the ads are not labelled with the originating app name?

Me: If a user dislikes the ads - is there any way for him to know which app caused it? I'm worried I'll get bad ratings.

Lisa: No Lisa: The user will not know

Me: Hopefully users won't know it's my app that's doing it so they won't uninstall my app.

Lisa: No don't worry about that. Lisa: Here you can also benefit through inactive users as you can configure your settings to deliver ads to users who haven't used an app for X days

Me: And they won't know it's me?

Lisa: No not at all.

Me: Cool. Me: OK. You seem quite happy to support developers who knowingly spam their users. Do you mind if I publish a transcript of this conversation so other people can see how little regard you have for end-users? Me: Hopefully it will hasten the speed at which your nasty company goes out of business

Lisa: Surely it will not.

Me: It's a very revealing conversation.

Me: Thank-you for being so candid.

Lisa: But I believe we maintain our privacy

Me: Who's privacy?

Lisa: And as long as we receive good responses, we will definitely look up to everyone's reputation

Me: Do you receive good responses from end-users?

Lisa: Yes definitely.

Me: Like all the users of APN Droid who have been leaving 1 star reviews and complaints on the Market?

Lisa: Anyways you can download our SDK and start listing your apps if you are happy with it.

---------------------- Your party has left this session. ----------------------

29 comments

[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 50.1 ms ] thread
Drakim
This blows my mind, but I guess I'm naive when it comes to how sleazy people can be.

I love Android, and I don't want it to be known to the general public as the virus and spyware ridden OS on smartphones.

hexley
Isn't it though? There are plenty of AV suites for android already. And those spyware incidents...
sthulbourn
It's sad that you need a AV/Spyware scanner for phones...

Sure, it makes sense that you need one, given that it's essentially a small computer, but apps that make it into the official market place or one that's held in high regard should screen apps for exactly this type of behaviour.

dpritchett
Looks like Android needs a curated distribution, the Ubuntu of smartphones.

Wait, why isn't Canonical already on this?

Macha
Wasn't that the idea behind the Amazon appstore? Bringing an Apple-esque restricted store to Android to compete with Google's free for all market?
ScottWhigham
Why is this showing up in "Ask"?
andybak
Ack - sorry. I think it's because I didn't include a URL. I should have posted the content elsewhere and a link in HN. I forgot HN doesn't really support longer form posts like this. In my defence, I'm currently blog-less.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
brudgers
You could edit the title to "Tell HN:"
mattgreenrocks
It's Windows all over again, with apps sticking themselves in the tray unnecessarily, coming bundled with popups, and wanting updates every 3 days. Google and Apple need to draw hard and fast limits on every one of these common resources and also consider banning apps that abuse notifications to deliver ads.

Because this isn't innovation, it is exploitation.

brudgers
I think the comparison to Windows is a stretch because Windows does not push ads in the system tray and because anything in the system tray is generally identifiable to the user and frequently configured with modest effort by the user as well (though a developer can certainly take steps to make it a royal pain in the ass - printer manufacturers come to mind).
mattgreenrocks
The examples used are, but these sorts of user exploitation in the name of 'innovation' and 'branding' smell exactly the same as in years past. They illustrate a complete lack of empathy (and subsequently, taste) on the part of the developers, piss off users, and generally drive the perception of the platform down over the long run.

Printer drivers seem to be nothing more than a sick in-joke as to who can make the biggest, most useless pieces of software.

Madsn
Wow thick-headed much? Thanks for sharing, made me laugh.
spiffworks
Google needs to seriously start cleaning house in the Market. Given that most Android phones out there can sideload, there won't even be that much of a backlash. I suspect the only reason they aren't already doing this is because they have an organisational distaste for manual screening. The sooner they fix the market, the healthier the Android ecosystem.
heliodor
I was thinking a few weeks ago about how new advertising models on mobile would look like. The first thing that came to mind was exactly this: ads in the notification bar for Android.

Plenty of business models require that the user trade a negative benefit for a positive benefit. To succeed, you just have to ensure the net value to the user is positive. Yes, new ways of advertising are jarring at first, but some people will buy into it and adoption and acceptance start from there.

The company singled out here is clearly implementing this concept very poorly and possibly causing irreparable damage to this new advertising method, but it's the company's approach that is problematic, not the method itself.

asherisaac
The support rep has given you wrong informaton. We ask all of our developers to put a notice in the Details page of their app, which APNDroid clearly had posted for all users to see. We also provide an API for developers to build custom opt-in and opt-out for the push notification ads.

Some users give bad ratings to many types of ad units, including rich media ads and full page interstitials. That doesn't mean a developer should avoid them.

billmcneale
Not sufficient. Does the notification showing the ad show which application it's coming from?

As long as you don't implement this, you are being disingenuous.

Not that I really care that much, to be honest: I bet that AirPush will shut down and be completely forgotten in a matter of months.

kefs
I'm sorry, but airpush is ridiculous, and any developer that chooses to use it is asking the community to give it's app a bad name.

I also had a conversation with "matt" from airpush when this story broke on reddit.

http://pastebin.com/c8cpd5H8

Needless to say, they've done nothing to refresh their image in the Android community's eyes.

asherisaac
All -- we respect your feedback and are responding. We are releasing an emergency update which will make Airpush ads OPT-IN by the users. Users will be prompted upon install if they want to support the developer by allowing 1 ad/day in their tray.

With this change, as a user would you find Airpush as an acceptable monetization option for the developer? This makes it purely a user's choice.

Please note we have already offered a "Permissions API" which many developers are using to create their own opt-in and opt-out procedures, but we are now taking the additional step of FORCING it in our SDK.

Comments are much appreciated.

ydant
Does this end up being one per day per device, or one per day per application?

As an aside, I installed the test application on the marketplace to experience my default notification sound at the same time as the alert was pushed. Cluttering my notification tray is one (undesired) thing, but the sound just pushed it over the top. Is that the behavior the ads will take as well?

I respect trying to push monetization of free apps in a new direction, but I also consider my notification bar to be sacred. Even one additional useless (to me) notification means I trust the rest of them just a little bit less. With moving toward Priority Inbox for gmail, and turning off most other notifications, I would be quite disappointed to realize an application I installed was cluttering it with ads.

asherisaac
It's one per day per DEVICE. As stated we are moving to 100% opt-in. As a result, you will be able to block Airpush ads if you detest them so much, while other users can elect to keep them to help support the developer.

Can't we agree that user choice is the best option here? Or would you only be happy if the entire concept was eradicated? The latter doesn't make sense to me.

1010011010
It's an abuse of the notifications system. So, I'm definitely in the "eradication" camp.
billmcneale
Sometime, even user choice is not acceptable because the feature is so obnoxious.

"Check this box to install malware: X"

For me, AirPush is in that category.

Come on asherisaac, be honest and imagine that you leave the company you work for so you can assess its business model more objectively: do you still think it's okay? Honestly?

1010011010
No. Ads in the notification area are unacceptable noise -- an abuse of the system. I would uninstall any app that did it, tell anyone who would listen to install it and probably scream at my phone for a while if an app started doing it.
asherisaac
So because you wouldn't OPT-IN to receive the ads, you think it's fair not to allow others to opt-in?

We believe that with a solid opt-in in place, users should be able to support the developer by receiving Airpush ads.

Our mistake was we gave full control to the developers to build custom opt-in and opt-out using our Permissions API, whereas going forward we will FORCE a standardized opt-in dialog box.

fooey
with any luck, and it's looking very likely, your "mistake" is going to cost you your business

you've already enraged the community who builds apps, so your forthcoming ban from the marketplace might not even be necessary

i'm personally hoping Google takes a section from the ToS you've undoubtedly breached and sues you into oblivion

1010011010
If I never saw a notification-bar ad, I would not have a problem. The first time though -- the app gets uninstalled and gets a bad review.
bxr
So, basically now your business model relies on on users blindly clicking OK to everything when installing/firstrun of an app? Just like they've been conditioned to do from years of desktop software? Not much of an improvement.