"Apps intended for kids may not include third-party advertising or analytics" - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ <comment><USER2> I totally agree with this!

I built a game and naively added ads to it as it seemed a good way to monetize. The game started to be really liked, and had 300k+ downloads overall. Many kids started playing it also.

Luckily I realized quickly that kids play on the devices of parents and so the ads they might see are at times super inappropriate!

Then I removed all ads, I'd rather make less money but have people play and have a good time. Its not always about money. At times I get contacted by players, how they love the game and how it has been part of their childhood etc. Some very moving messages, worth more then a few additional bucks from ads and I feel much better because players aren't exposed to random ads, pictures and messages.

The learning for me was that I will never work on anything that uses ads as source of income, this includes turning down jobs at Google and Facebook.

<comment><USER3> Do you morally disagree with advertising/tracking monetization as a whole or just those particularly geared towards vulnerable populations? (children in your instance)

I have my professional job developing software solutions for clients on a contractual base, but for a period after I graduated university I dabbled in mobile development and made the decision during that time that I'd never bloat my crappy apps with ads or tracking. I can't particularly articulate why I'm against that business method as a whole, but something always felt wrong in subjecting people to tracking/advertisements for my own monetary gain... if I'm not producing something worth paying outright for then I'm not going to skim pennies off the privacy of my users.

<comment><USER4> I can give you my feelings towards this topic. Personally, I don't mind ads that inform me of the existence of a product that I may be interested in, where it tells me how it can solve my problems.

What I don't like is ads that use psychological devices to try to get me to buy their product. I also don't like ads that are a distraction of the content I'm trying to consume. So when playing a game, if the ad scroll at the bottom of the screen is flashy, I can't easily play that game so I give up. Now an ad that shows on a loading screen may be more acceptable, as long as the contents of the ad aren't something that would get me fired if someone at work sees it.

I also hate that ads have to have their own javascript in it. The ad networks should provide a safe canned set of functions that they control, and not serve up anything that an ad customer submits.

Finally, if I'm already doing research for something (such as browsing through the Bose headphones site), I don't want to see ads for those same headphones that I already researched, following me around on all the web pages I visit. It just really feels like someone is stalking me. Or look through a site like rvtrader, then when you look up the weather the next day you see a bunch of camper ads. Again, stalking. It's gotten to the point where I constantly browse in a private browsing tab (yes, there are ways they can still track me, but they aren't as obvious about it).

<comment><USER5> The distraction aspect is what really gets to me; cancelled my NYTimes subscription after these bright red / orange advertisements loaded all over the page, where the content I was interested in was the bland black text over white background. Couldn't even read the headlines without naturally focusing on the bright red advertisements.

<comment><USER6> So, do they really have the same ads as you could see without subscription?

<comment><USER7> Yes, WSJ too

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here is the whole section

> 1.3 Kids Category

> The Kids Category is a great way for people to easily find apps that are > designed for children. If you want to participate in the Kids Category, you > should focus on creating a great experience specifically for younger users. > These apps must not include links out of the app, purchasing opportunities, > or other distractions to kids unless reserved for a designated area behind a > parental gate. Keep in mind that once customers expect your app to follow > the Kids Category requirements, it will need to continue to meet these > guidelines in subsequent updates, even if you decide to deselect the > category. Learn more about parental gates.

> Apps in the Kids Category may not include third-party advertising or > analytics. You should also pay particular attention to privacy laws around > the world relating to the collection of data from children online. Be sure > to review the Privacy section of these guidelines for more information.

It appears to only apply to apps in the "Kids Category" so Candy Crush and the like can just say they are "adult"/not-kid-games and continue to be used by kids (while showing them ads and tracking them).

<comment><USER9> Why do they ban third-party advertising in particular? It seems like advertising should be allowed as long as it's display only with no outward information flow. Basically ads equivalent OTA television or magazine ads should be allowed.

<comment><USER10> In general, I believe it's based on the belief that children in partiular don't yet have the necessary mental tools to be able to properly analyze content -- basically, that they're influenced by media to a much higher degree than adults.

> Basically ads equivalent OTA television or magazine ads should be allowed

I would guess that proponents of this approach also feel that the contents of TV/magazine ads should be strictly controlled (and probably they are -- I'm not sure what the exact regulations around these are, but I am sure it's much harder to publish a blatantly misleading magazine or TV ad, without consequences to the advertiser or the network/magazine, than it is to publish one online).

<comment><USER11> Not just a belief, it's been studied many times, and it is in fact illegal to have "native" advertising on children's TV shows, at least in the U.S.

<comment><USER12> Almost all cartoons aimed at kids hope to make money on related merchandise. A lot of animated shows were cancelled because while the ratings were good, they skewed toward older teens and adults that didn't buy toys. Two that come to mind are "Young Justice" and the original "Teen Titans". Cartoon Network specifically made "Teen Titans Go!" to skew younger.

This isn't a new thing, they killed off most of the Transformers in the 80s movie so they could introduce a new line of characters/toys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> move-on-by So far the only kids apps I've used with my little one is 'Sesame Street' and 'PBS Kids Video'. He loves Elmo, and its very handy in the pediatrician's waiting room to have a distraction.

I also run a PiHole, and to my displeasure, I've found both these apps use Google Analytics. PBS Kids Video goes a few steps further and uses Google AdWords as well as ScorecardResearch analytics. These publicly funded apps are siphoning data about me and my little one off to 3rd parties. The 3rd paries might not be able to use that data for targeted advertising within the app, but make no mistake that the data is still used to 'enrich' my shadow profiles. I am very excited about these changes from Apple and I hope that they are able to enforce them. I've written both of the apps support emails in the past about the analytics and never received a response.

I've also heard of a popular BBC kids app called CBeebies. Last time I ran it on my iPhone, it reached out to Facebook, Localytics, Branch.io, Google Analytics, app-measurement.com, and onesignal.com

<comment><USER13> I dislike tracking as much as anyone, but can you really fault them for using Google analytics? It's not like PBS choose to use them "to profit off the viewers".

<comment><USER14> I have a stupid question, why don't they use something like Matomo instead?

<comment><USER15> GA today is much more than just pageview analytics. With something like Google Tag Manager, you can have non-technical staff add in event tracking for stuff like form completion or file downloads, without needing to get developers involved. Reporting for stakeholders is also robust because of its integration with Google Data Studio, Google Sheets and other related tools.

Ultimately though, GA wins because these organizations outsource web development and digital marketing work to agencies or contractors, and they are the ones that make the tooling decisions. GA is a known quantity, so even if their contract isn't renewed, a new agency will be able to take over the account fairly frictionlessly.

And there are more contractors that are GA-focused than there are for Matomo, and that's important when you're tasked with shopping around for agencies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Dropping adds seems good to me, but dropping analytics doesn't seem great from a game dev perspective. New features and game balance is often driven by analytics data. For example, if no one's using a certain feature in the game then maybe it needs more attention brought to it or maybe attention won't be focused on it for the next update.

I understand that there's a fine line between game analytics and farming PII but I think it's an important line. I'm sad to see Apple forcing you to use a first-party analytics solution. Smaller indie devs often won't have the time to set up their own data pipeline and depend on things like Unity Analytics or Flurry to help them do data analysis.

<comment><USER17> I guess I should start a service that provides small indie devs with "first party" analytics. I provide the software, it runs on a server dedicated to you, your data is separate from anyone else's. That's first-party, right? But I suppose I would have to charge 3x more for that than Amplitude does.

<comment><USER18> There are a few OSS projects that do this. I am not sure how well they integrate with mobile apps though.

[https://matomo.org/](https://matomo.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Google please steal this idea.

Edit: current policy is

"Ads in your app that are served to children need to be appropriate and served from an ads network that has certified compliance with our families policies."

See [https://android- developers.googleblog.com/2019/05/building-s...](https://android- developers.googleblog.com/2019/05/building-safer-google-play-for-kids.html)

<comment><USER20> Considering the state of the play store and such ... probably nobody is paying attention.

<comment><USER19> A year ago I would have agreed but a lot has happened lately.

Play store went from 3.2m to 2.6m apps last year. When it comes to rejecting apps that violate their tos they are pretty trigger happy.

<comment><USER20> I feel like they're trigger happy... but via automation and scripts that I'm not sure are getting that much.

Like the volume is down, but for all I know it's just the same actors getting the same stuff out there.

It's really hard to tell.

<comment><USER19> I thick they are starting to do some good.

For what it's worth, Apple QA is also mostly automated.

<comment><USER20> It would be interesting to know how Apple's automation works as the impression (may not be accurate) is their approval or denying is a bit more precise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> As a parent of 3 children and owner of multiple iPads and Android devices (including a kids edition Fire Tablet) this really strikes a chord with me. We buy the Toca Boca and Sago Mini games and the occasional game from other providers that strike the kids fancy.

But this is a huge development. Big enough that I'll be dropping the Android devices and switching my kids over to Apple ones completely. As it is I have lots of conversations with them regarding why some games they see will never be bought by us (like those awful Thomas and Friends ones that you have to buy then still have ads and IAP to put up with).

Thank you Apple. But also, shame on you industry for making this something that I need to specifically look out for.

<comment><USER22> What do those conversations sound like with Thomas age kids? If you've got tips, metaphors, known failure, anything at all on how to create a class level understanding that short circuits per instance debates I'm all ears.

<comment><USER21> LOL. I ended up going overboard on it and actually took them to a store for Teachers' materials and bought some exercise books on Media and Currency/Finances and we've ended up with a bunch of discussions about personal finances, the advertising world, and critical thinking. I'm trying to instil in them the ability to analyze what they see, understand what the motivations of others are and translate that to the messages they receive.

If all goes well they'll understand what ads are and how they manipulate us from a young age and be better able to deal with this crazy world as they grow older. Of course this is a long game - I don't know if I'm being successful yet but I'm hopeful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This has been something both requested and discussed online for a long time. Kids can't really decide what information to share and what not, and they are often bombarded by retargeting ads supported by analytics services. It still remains unclear how those apps will make money using 3rd party ads, but it is clear that kids apps won't be able to use 3rd party SaaS services (Mixpanel, Amplitude, Firebase, etc) and have to rely on same-domain-on-premises and/or open source product analytics services, eg Countly (shameless plug: I am co- founder of Countly, building an open source analytics platform particularly for privacy and security reasons).

Let's see how it goes. Apple sometimes comes up with a "quick" decision and then stands down after a few months as criticisms occur. I expect that corresponding wording will change until the section goes into effect.

</comment><comment><USER24> That's great, except there is no way to create a "kids" account without another apple device.

My kids school won't participate in the program to create kids accounts for schools, and I don't own other apple devices. So on my rented ipad, the only option is to create a 13+ year old account (for my kindergartner). So now that she's in 2nd grade, apple thinks she's 16.

I've complained about this endlessly to the school, and talked to a couple lawyers. Apparently there is no legal issue because I have to create the accounts, so they are my accounts. I'm just letting my kid use them.

So... apple sucks, give us a web-ui for creating child accounts. I don't mind having a parent account, but you cannot have family accounts without an Ipad or some other apple device, and a single ipad is a single user device.

<comment><USER25> > I don't mind having a parent account, but you cannot have family accounts > without an Ipad or some other apple device, and a single ipad is a single > user device.

You can't just log in to the ipad with a parent account, create a child account, log out, then log back in with the child account?

<comment><USER24> I tried this, but whenever the child account needs approval, your done. You can't approve anything so your child is stuck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > _Apps in the Kids Category may not include third-party advertising or > analytics._

Totally agreed for advertising... but analytics are essential to improving the quality and usability of apps including for kids, and they're a real cost to roll your own. Using third-party analytics is like using a third-party JPEG or MP3 decoder: it almost never makes sense spending 100's or 1,000's of hours writing your own.

So I don't get it. What's the harm for kids in third-party analytics? Third- party analytics are just a service, they're not necessarily ever correlated with anything else. But even if they are, the only argument I can imagine is not helping further build up advertising profiles... but if kids aren't seeing the ads _anyways_ then again, what's the harm?

<comment><USER27> Because it's wrong?

<comment><USER26> What is wrong about it?

"Because it's wrong" isn't really a response without something backing it up. That's what I'm asking -- what's the harm, where's the wrong?

The harm in advertising is obvious. A harm from third-party analytics is not.

<comment><USER27> Analytics can be harmful too. Developers use it to make the app/game stickier, more attractive to children. Children also have no way of consenting or even knowing what analytics are. Not only that but there's no knowing what happens to the analytics at third parties - regardless of their privacy policies. Basically all third party analytics are designed to build profiles and help marketing.

Plenty of safe ways to track interactions that don't rely on third party scripts which gobble up all kinds of data. Plus might even be illegal depending on jurisdiction.

<comment><USER28> >Developers use it to make the app/game stickier, more attractive to children

another way to phrase that is "developers use it to make the game more fun"

<comment><USER29> Addictive does not always mean fun. Kids love bright things like lasers and love to shine them into their eyes (I know I did), doesn't mean it's a good idea - even if it is fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Here me out here- I equate apps with ads as predatory. The gut feeling from many apps/games is that the goal is to annoy you into paying. Many "free" games let you have one 'turn' and then force a 30-60 second ad on you that usually redirects you to the App Store to download some other affiliate app. Maybe I am the old man screaming get off my lawn, but when pc shareware was the rage you usually attempted to delight the user into parting with their money. Then I remember a shift in the late 90s where ad/malware started showing up in shareware. That effectively killed the shareware market for me. Rubberduck h30 was the app I remember as the culprit.

<comment><USER31> But this won't prevent ads. It merely prohibits third party ads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> How does this impact Google's "YouTube Kids" app. It is currently listed as the "Best video app for all kids" on iTunes. It contains more videos advertising stuff to kids than it does any other kind.

With McDonalds non-affilitated but clearly still ads being the most prominent.

<comment><USER33> Well given that Google own the AdSense/DoubleClick platform which is used for serving ads on YouTube as well as all of it's own custom analytic tools none of these would be third party. The part about not linking out of the app would still apply though.

<comment><USER34> Wow, so that really reinforce the trend toward monopoly and conglomeration in tech. Make a kids entertainment platform and you must get acquired by google, facebook, Amazon or Apple before you can turn on ads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Here's how I expect this to go:

1\. Six months from now, Apple will announce a new ad network, which will be whitelisted for Kids apps.

2\. Twelve months from now, they'll ban all non-Apple ad networks in kids apps. If they want to be subtle about it, I'm sure they'll find some inappropriate ad to use as a pretext.

3\. 18 months from now, they'll open their ad network to all apps.

4\. 24 months from now, they'll ban non-Apple ad networks in all apps, and swim in money as they've found another way to squeeze more money out of their captive userbase.

And every step of the way, HN will cheer as Apple continues to brutally exploit their ownership of the platform.

<comment><USER36> What's the problem about Apple doing that? It's their platform. You can go use whatever else you like, nobody forces you to use their system.

<comment><USER37> Apple force's you to use their platform if you have an Apple device. You can't install fdroid, or anything else.

<comment><USER38> And that is why Apple devices are more secure, faster, more privacy- respecting, and last much longer with good performance. That trade-off is absolutely worth it to me.

<comment><USER39> Nope. Kids demand Apple devices because of the cool factor.

"Survey: 83% of US teens have an iPhone, Android 9%" \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19610357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19610357)

Seems like they're abusing their monopoly to me.

<comment><USER36> Where do you see a monopoly? The fact that people choose it doesn't make it a monopoly. Specially with that price tag. You can choose many other options. There is no real economic argument to call it a monopoly.

<comment><USER39> "Survey: 83% of US teens have an iPhone, Android 9%" \- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19610357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19610357)

They've got a monopoly on kids devices.

<comment><USER36> Market share is different from monopoly. Apple is not the only phone manufacturer. There are many companies out there making phones. The fact that everybody likes or chooses them doesn't mean they are a monopoly.

<comment><USER39> Market share is absolutely a huge factor in defining who has a monopoly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This should be the standard across the board, but unfortunately we're too far from that. As a parent, it pisses me off to see not-age-appropriate advertisement shown to kids.

<comment><USER41> Yeah, part of me wonders if this is just more a reaction to the apps market hitting the next plateau and one of the last impulse growth markets being kids apps. Once there is a special category it should create a new breed of app that would inherently get less complaints/refunds/etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is the first thing I've seen Apple do that actually makes me happy about them. I haven't considered one of their products in years.

</comment><comment><USER43> I develop for both iOS and Android and since last year, I have completely stopped using ads in all my newer apps. I have switched to a freemium model. On my recent HACK app for HN client for example, I let you use all features and unlock features on a session basis. So lets say you switch on dark mode, I let you use it for the session until the app is either killed by iOS or restarted from the app switcher. Once restarted, you need to re-set the dark theme and I just show you a popup asking you to support development with a one time only small IAP. This freemium model has been working good.

On another of my apps, OLEDify I have used a tipping/donation model where I give all features for free complete and hope that you will tip me whatever money you like. This hasn't really gotten me much despite thousands of downloads and DAU but I just don't want to support the advertisement companies based on all the recent manipulative tactics they have been playing.

</comment><comment><USER44> If I were apple I'd extend the definition of a kids app as any app thats userbase is kids by majority. Not sure how to enforce or detect that, though!

<comment><USER45> > Keep in mind that once customers expect your app to follow the Kids Category > requirements, it will need to continue to meet these guidelines in > subsequent updates, even if you decide to deselect the category.

Sounds like they're ready.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Are first party ads better for kids?

<comment><USER47> I'm curious what keeps "first party" analytics/ads just phoning home and doing the third-party transaction server-side.

<comment><USER48> Apple's banhammer, should the public ever catch you in the act. (I guess.)

<comment><USER49> And their ban hammer is not terribly sophisticated either. They find one ad that is the same, or similar to, an ad being served someplace else and WHAM!

Unless you've got money to burn, don't try to be nickel slick with Apple. Learned that the hard way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I would be much more impressed if it said "Apps intended for kids may not include advertising or analytics"

As it stands now it seems rather empty and in relation to recent news something that could fuel the anti-trust talks.

Edit: considering that the law of my country states specifically that you can not target kids with ads, I wonder how apple will handle it since they now obviously have a method of tagging apps targeted at kids.

</comment><comment><USER51> Yes! This is amazing. The thing I most loathe is the advertising that shows up when my kid is using one of the few apps we allow (and PAID for), in the limited allotted time with the iPad.

Total feeling of powerlessness, especially when the content is not exactly child-friendly: last one she told me about was an ad for a game with somebody tied up, having his head cut-off, inside Cut The Rope.

</comment><comment><USER20> I like it, leave kids out of this stuff rather than dance around policies and enforcement about what ad networks are good or whatever.

</comment><comment><USER52> Good; I only wish this is where applications on phones had started to begin with. Try giving a toddler a phone and they'll figure out navigation controls on their own easily, but once ads start playing they'll smash it because they have no clue what to do. Ads have no place in apps for kids

</comment><comment><USER53> Next: apps/games for kids should not include micro-transactions/inapp payments

</comment><comment><USER54> This is massive, Apple banned what Google does with Chromebooks for kids/schools.

<comment><USER55> Chromebooks for education don't use the information for advertising, right?

<comment><USER45> That's what Google says.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> In addition, you may want to see [https://www.appstorereviewguidelineshistory.com/](https://www.appstorereviewguidelineshistory.com/) for detailed changelog / history.

</comment><comment><USER57> We have a decently popular kids app, Kodable, that helps kids learn to code. While this is something we're mostly already in compliance with and have never actually included ads, I worry about the analytics.

We use anonymous analytics to track things like user completion through level funnels. Nothing nefarious about it, if one of our levels is too hard for kids and there's a big drop off from one to the next, we want to know about it and tweak it. I worry how this will effect stuff like that, but I also wonder how you can even differentiate "proper" analytics usage.

</comment><comment><USER58> This is interesting.

What options does that leave for making money on these apps? Charging directly and first-party ads? Are parents willing to pay for these apps?

<comment><USER59> If parents are willing to spend money on consoles for their kids to play and for school supplies for their kids to learn, this isn't any different, right?

Parents will pay.

<comment><USER58> Mobile is much more difficult to monetize than consoles. People have become accustomed to getting mobile apps for free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> This will not change a thing. I still have to see a kid which plays games from "Kids category". So no Minecraft... no Terraria...

</comment><comment><USER61> Can someone please clarify the "analytics" part? All kinds of analytics services, or services that use your app analytics for their own purposes, or use it for the sake of ads targeting/retargeting, or have PII risks?

I'm not sure I see the harm to kids if an app uses some ads-free analytics provider like Amplitude just for its own 1st party needs... or am I missing something?

<comment><USER12> Do you have the source code to Amplitude? If not, you don't know what the binary blob you're including in your code does.

<comment><USER61> yes, on iOS (Unity App) all of Amplitude SDK is in source code.

<comment><USER62> Yes, maybe they can't place an ad on your app but they do track all your user event data which means that they can target them somewhere else. All the iOS unique identifier, location, and user attribution data are collected directly into their servers.

<comment><USER61> yes, they collect and store that data, but what if they don't use it anywhere else other than for my app analytics?

It's a very vaguely defined rule which may create tons of additional work for developers, yet may not improve the privacy in some cases.

<comment><USER62> Well, you can always use open-source solutions in order to collect your customer event data into your data-warehouse and run your queries on your own data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> This along with the "sign in with apple" feature really makes it a good time to be a bit of an apple fanboy.

</comment><comment><USER64> Is this a new change? What is the backstory on this?

And how is "third party" defined? Sounds easy to game by having it only directly communicate with the server of the app developer, and having it completely impossible for Apple to tell whether or not they are then communicating with a third party service.

<comment><USER65> An ad network is not going to trust your stream of requests, taking you on your word that your requests are coming from actual users and that the ads are getting shown back to actual users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I worked for a very large company that's considered a leader in apps and games for kids. I don't think this is as good as it seems first glance.

COPPA compliance isn't new. There are _some_ third party analytics tools that are COPPA compliant, and any responsible company is already taking COPPA seriously. What's new here is saying you can't farm responsibility for your data collection to COPPA-compliant third party SDKs. My guess is because there have been too many watchdogs raising concerns, and it's much easier to review apps for compliance if you blanket ban third party SDKs with this purpose.

That said, this isn't going to change the business need. You'll just seem more first party code hitting a first party wrapper to a third party service. It will also encourage more small companies to try rolling their own, which invites bad security practices and greater risk what the data that _is_ collected. I'm not sure that really helps kids or parents overall.

<comment><USER12> Like I said above, what's wrong with the simple idea of getting people to pay for apps and avoid any ads?

<comment><USER66> I don't think there is, and there's a lot of apps with that model. However, that's not the topic at hand.

<comment><USER12> Hopefully with Apple making it harder to monetize via ads, it will be the topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Can we get this rule for adults too?

</comment><comment><USER68> Working on an ad platform, this definitely makes sense.

As a company we moved away from user targeting to context targeting where app developers provide all the context. Our case is specific to transit but I think in general this invasive ad model needs to go away

</comment><comment><USER34> This means that if you make an app for kids, and you were planing on using ad monetization, your only recourse is to get acquired by an Ad-Tech company (Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon included) so that you can run "first-party ads."

</comment><comment><USER69> I'm being drawn into Apple by their stances on things like this and privacy. As much as I am bought into the Google eco-system, I'm questioning how long that'll be for.

</comment><comment><USER70> This is good, but they should probably ban all ads in kids' apps, particularly ads that push microtransactions and in-app purchases.

<comment><USER49> You're in luck. I strongly suspect microtransactions and in-app purchases are next on the child content chopping block. (Well, at least for Apple.)

If you're making apps for kids today, you should definitely start looking at how you can stay in business without these kinds of facilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Apple is so 'on it' right now.

</comment><comment><USER72> Sounds like a missed opportunity for Apple to provide a curated, child- friendly advertising channel.

<comment><USER73> > child-friendly advertising channel

There is no such thing. Children do not make purchasing decisions. Advertising to children is adversarial manipulation of the development of their preferences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I never thought I would say this, but I will get all of my apps from the kids section from now on.

</comment><comment><USER75> Can i just get kid cersions for all my apps then? Why should adults not enjoy the same freedom?

</comment><comment><USER76> How about adding an additional, voluntary section with apps that are bound by the same standards and requirements, rather than segmented by audience or purpose?

<comment><USER12> I would hope that an adult would have the maturity to make the decision not to use ad supported apps if they didn't want to.

<comment><USER77> Adults can't really make that decision for analytics though. Most iOS users that don't use facebook have no idea that facebook has all of their data including their location because third party apps are using facebook's analytics SDK, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> A great start!

</comment><comment><USER79> This will include Facebook, right?

<comment><USER80> Facebook doesn't allow you to sign up unless you're 13 years old, and isn't in the 'kids' category of the App Store, so this is not applicable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Apple should just go all in:

Disable free to play games targeted at children completely. Require every children's game to have an upfront price (I suppose the $0.99 minimum app charge at least).

This would be great news for the market - game developers would focus on building more rewarding gaming experiences, instead of just endless skinner boxes. It would also help sell Apple devices, since developers would not need to target the lowest-common-denominator for mass advertising appeal.

<comment><USER82> I think your optimism is misplaced. App developers would soon figure out how to charge 99 cents for a Skinner box.

<comment><USER73> I wonder if you could list multiple copies of an MMO game client on an app store, with each client having a different price and providing different in- game aesthetic effects like "FooGame: Sparkly Hat Edition".

Could be an easy way to get around this limitation.

<comment><USER82> That already exists with the Basic, Advanced and Pro editions of some application software. Extending that paradigm to a game is just a matter of determining which expansion packs are preinstalled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> But all Apple apps will continue to do this?

You really need to drink the Apple koolaid to think this changes anything.

<comment><USER12> The only Apple app that has advertising is the App store. They've already stated that the games that will be a part of Apple Arcade won't have ads.

<comment><USER83> But they will collect data for APPL

<comment><USER12> Third party developers will send data to Apple? What's Apple going to do with it?

<comment><USER83> Apple has their own apps. Do they collect data on children?

Will they let some high profile devs slip by? Apple is known to be anti consumer.

<comment><USER84> Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've been doing it a lot, and it's not what this site is for.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> I don't mean to be pedantic, but I'd argue that Apple copy writers should have used "shall not" rather than "may not" in this text. The latter is ambiguous and could mean "perhaps they won't..."

<comment><USER86> Apple's copy writers didn't write it, their lawyers did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> If you charge for listing and take 30% for sales, people are going to try some aggressive revenue techniques.

One of the biggest unsolved problems for users is how to get the security of a walled garden while still encouraging open development, the sort of little experiments that become free simple QoL apps or toy proof of concept programs that spawn a business.

It's a problem only for users of course, less so for the gardeners.

<comment><USER12> You mean they are going to charge enough money to account for the cost of distribution? That could even be a new business model -- charging people money and giving them stuff. Like software makers have done since the first personal computer or game console came out? You realize that retail stores were routinely charging 60%?

<comment><USER87> This has sat for a while. I don't really understand why the sudden dismissive sarcasm, but my best guess is I just didn't explain my point very well. You probably don't care at all, but for posterity maybe I ought to explain what I meant.

I feel like it's easier to find reputable free software on PCs than on app stores. I'm not saying all software should be free, or that free software is better than paid or ad-supported software, or that it's crazy to charge for hard work. Nothing radical.

It just seems like on other platforms there are a variety of models that all overlap. Less so on app stores.

My best hunch is that the dev fees have something to do with that.

I feel like you're saying this is purely a distribution cost, but all these platforms are using the same Internet. I also don't think Apple is setting these fees at pure cost. They have a captive set of users that developers can't get access to in other ways. Monopoly rents for access to that unique set of users wouldn't be that crazy.

Maybe I'm wrong though. If there's some other theory that explains this, I'd love to hear it. "It's expensive to move electrons" doesn't seem to explain why the ecosystems on different platforms are so different though.

EDIT: tone.</comment></comment></comment>


Anonymous memo on how to raise and retain control for seed stage companies - <AUTHOR> https://txt.fyi/+/8b212f45/ <comment><USER2> what is SAFE and what is priced round?

<comment><USER3> Simple Agreement for Future Equity

[https://www.ycombinator.com/documents/](https://www.ycombinator.com/documents/)</comment></comment>


Obama Signs Patent 'Reform' Bill - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/09/obama-signs-patent-reform-bill-crustless-sandwich-still-patented

<comment><USER2> This bill contains a major blow to patent trolls. The new joinder rules make it much harder to sue multiple defendants in one suit. Companies like Lodsys that want to sue dozens of companies will have to do it in dozens of separate suits.

This hurts them in three ways:

1\. Their litigation costs will go way up.

2\. Defendants will be much more successful in getting venue changes to a forum of their choice, instead of being force to defend where the troll files. (When there were multiple defendants in one suit, carefully chosen by the troll to be from all over the country, it was hard for a defendant to get a venue change to their home turf because the court would want to keep all the cases together for judicial efficiency, and there would be no district that would be better for all the defendants). This further drives up the costs to the troll because now they will not only be litigating dozens of suits, they will be scatted are over the country.

3\. They have a much greater chance of losing their patent. Each trial provides an opportunity for a judge or jury to decide on any number of grounds that the patent is invalid. Once a patent is ruled invalid, that's it for that patent.

There's a good post elaborating on those points from Red Hat's senior patent counsel here: [http://opensource.com/law/11/9/new-patent-reform-law- could-r...](http://opensource.com/law/11/9/new-patent-reform-law-could-reduce- lawsuits-non-practicing-entity?sc_cid=70160000000IDmjAAG)

Toss in the new rules making it easier to challenge a patent, and the new rules that increase the scope of prior art, and this is overall a pretty good bill from a programmer's point of view.

<comment><USER3> s/patent troll/small inventor/ and all your logic remains valid.

The only thing this significantly benefits is large companies' ability to kill off smaller competition.

Patents should be completely abolished as a relic from the age of steam. This is the 21st century.

<comment><USER4> I'm having trouble putting your two statements together into a coherent whole. You say that making life more difficult for patent trolls will make it harder for smaller shops,but then go on to advocate abolishing patents, which does not strike me as terribly friendly to the smaller inventor.

<comment><USER3> A. I advocate abolishing patents. Some type of temporary protection would need to be provided for the very rare exceptional case of the development of new drugs. I can think of very very few, if any, cases where 21st century patents have actually contributed to "progress in the useful arts". Instead, they are universally a drag on people who actually produce things of value.

B. People may point to an exception case here and there, but the proverbial small inventor with a patent is a thousand times more likely to have his life savings eaten up by lawyers than to actually get paid for a useful invention. I don't think an improved patent system is actually going to help the small inventor.

C. This particular law looks to me like it further enhances large companies' ability to kill off smaller competition.

I don't think that there is a contradiction here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I quite dislike that this bill places greater onus to locate prior art onto the public rather than the patent filer. I'm not sure how that protects the mythical small inventor.

I mostly dislike that there is no move to make patents only defensive. Patent awards should be limited to only the cost of direct interference with the patent holder's business.

That would be the most sensible given the intended purpose of patents of defending an inventor in return for publishing the discovery.

Suing a business that has nothing to do with your own because it employs a similar solution logically is destructive to the economy, since their success does nothing to harm your own success. Patents should be limited to protect you against competitors who are in a zero-sum game for the same market.

<comment><USER6> > Patent awards should be limited to only the cost of direct interference with > the patent holder's business.

So you think that inventors who don't practice shouldn't be compensated.

I've done some work in computer architecture but I'm not in a position to build processors.

How do I get compensated for my work? (Note that "be an employee" doesn't work.)

<comment><USER7> _So you think that inventors who don't practice shouldn't be compensated._

No, they should not. If you don't practice then you, and the public in general, are losing nothing from your inability to sue people who are actually making things happen. If you don't practice then you have no expectation of being compensated for your work other than hoping that someone else steps on your patent and trolling them. If your patent actually has value then you should be forced to take the risk to demonstrate that fact by putting the invention into practice -- you do not need to be successful at the practice, but you should be forced to at least make the effort.

<comment><USER6> > If you don't practice then you, and the public in general, are losing > nothing from your inability to sue people who are actually making things > happen.

I don't work for free, so I'm not gong to bother to disclose if I'm not compensated.

> If you don't practice then you have no expectation of being compensated for > your work other than hoping that someone else steps on your patent and > trolling them.

Wrong. In the current world, I can file and approach folks who might benefit, offering to license.

In your world, I can't disclose without risking them saying "great idea, thanks".

And no, no one signs NDAs with individual inventors, so that's a non-starter.

> If your patent actually has value then you should be forced to take the risk > to demonstrate that fact by putting the invention into practice

The existing patent thicket around processors means that there's no way for me to practice. Plus there's the "invest millions of dollars" part (getting to tape-out is at least $1M, tape-out adds another $1M, and I still haven't done product support or any of the other things required to actually practice).

The value of my invention has nothing to do with whether I can do other things (design register files, etc) so it's unclear why my compensation should depend on doing said other things.

<comment><USER5> The motivation for you to patent is that someone else can file before you even if you invented it first. That's new in the United States and common in other jurisdictions.

You make money by licensing your inventions to companies that have means to create a product. You can use trade secrets and copyright to protect your invention. You don't need patents. However, in the defensive patent world, you should still get one in case they steal your idea.

What you'd be prevented from doing is creating an expansive definition of a market. That's not crazy talk. In the case of the Lodsys patents, Novell has filed that for prosecution history estoppel, which my reading of Groklaw might be because the original patents were filed with caveats they would only apply to a restricted market (probably set-top pay-per-view TV boxes).

[http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20110708021518...](http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20110708021518693)

I think this constraint on patents should be explicit and part of the law. i.e. a Pharmaceutical patent should declare it is for the pharmaceutical industry; if material engineering could use the same organic compound, that is sufficiently novel and non-predatory of the original patent holder. However, it's unclear in the current law whether or not the new use could pass.

<comment><USER6> > You make money by licensing your inventions to companies that have means to > create a product.

That's assuming that I have something to license. Abolishing patents or requiring me to practice means that I don't.

> You can use trade secrets and copyright to protect your invention.

Neither one applies to processor features.

For example, I invented a new way to do branch prediction. Copyright would apply to any documents that I produce or to the mask that someone used to implement that feature, but a new processor, by definition, wouldn't use that same mask or even a portion thereof.

As to copyright, a processor company can implement without copying any document (and even if someone did copy, the damages are at most $250k if I can prove it, which is going to be expensive). They merely need to read whatever description I provide.

For similar reasons, trade secret is a non-starter. (You have to disclose many processor features to make them useful.)

> What you'd be prevented from doing is creating an expansive definition of a > market.

Except that I'm not trying to do that. I'm trying to be compensated for inventing a new way to do branch prediction (for example).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can any of the legal eagles provide more context for how this is actually better for inventors?

It just reads like different loopholes and lawsuit strategies.

</comment><comment><USER9> Is there any way in which first-to-file is better for innovators ? With the new law, if you invent something and someone else can patent it 5 years later, that person can sue you (the inventor).

<comment> Tuna-Fish Patents are not given as prizes for the act of invention -- they are given for prizes for the act of sharing your invention with the rest of the world.

Also, so long as you can prove prior art, the patent is worthless.

<comment><USER3> No, even if one can easily prove prior art, the patent is worth some portion of the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would cost to do so in court.

<comment><USER10> Court isn't the only route to patent invalidation. When a plaintiff sues a defendant for patent infringement, there are usually two defenses brought up: "I'm not infringing on your patent" and "even if I were, your patent is invalid." Prevailing on the latter defense begets invalidation.

Third parties can also file ex parte or inter partes reexamination request, through which the third party can ask the USPTO to reexamine the patent to verify the patentability of the claimed subject matter. The fee for requesting an ex parte proceeding is $2520, and after filing the request, the third party no longer actively participates in the proceedings. Third parties filing an inter partes request, after paying the $8800 fee, may continue to participate in the proceedings.

<comment><USER3> So typically what are the total out-of-pocket fees for filing these requests including the bill from competent lawyer?

How likely are they to succeed in invalidating an issued patent?

If done poorly, couldn't they have the potential to actually reinforce a lousy patent?

Is this "cheap" course of action actually available if you're already being sued over some bogus patent you didn't know existed (or didn't choose to pay for the reexamination) in advance?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am sorry, for my question might sound shallow for those who know law deeper than me, but I want to clarify something. Lets say I invented something and never patented it, but was using it in my business for some period of time, and then someone patents my invention. Can he/she still sue me, provided I give proofs I've been using that invention even before he/she patented it?

<comment><USER12> yes, the person can sue you.

But if you can demonstrate that you have already been practising it before their patent lodgement date, then this is known as "prior art".

However, it will still cost you money to defend yourself in court.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This bill sounds like it does some good things. What nasty surprises came with it?

<comment><USER14> If you ignore the patent system and release your product without patents, your competition can arrive after you, patent your idea and then sue you.

<comment><USER15> I don't think that's quite right. As I understand the law (and IANAL), you could still get their patent invalidated for lack of novelty — you just couldn't claim the patent yourself in that case.

<comment><USER16> This Act changes the U.S. from a First to Invent system to a First to File.

<comment><USER17> First to file doesn't mean anything if there's prior art.

<comment><USER18> Prior art has very little to do with denying patents in the U.S.

<comment><USER19> Unfortunately true, but it does make it really hard to sue you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My understanding is that someone can now patent teleporters and replicators, and sue the person who eventually invents it. True?

<comment><USER2> Not true. Why would you think it would be?

<comment><USER20> It's first to file, right? I've heard there's no requirement for any implementation details or intent to manufacture; you can just come up with an idea, patent it, and wait for others to make it and sue them for royalties.

<comment><USER21> Intent to manufacture, no. Implementation details, yes. Your disclosure has to enable a person of ordinary skill in the art to make your invention. If you don't know how your teleporter works, you can't get a patent on it.

<comment><USER20> AH! Ok. That is a crucial distinction I hadn't known was the case. It's important this be made clear, since I've seen several discussions implying "no details" was the case.

P.S. To Whom It May Concern, It is objectively unfair for my OP to be downvoted. It was a legitimate question.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, I've seen lots of unfortunate confusion based on the "first-to-file" vs. "first-to-invent" distinction. Just doing my part as a patent attorney to clear it up when I notice it!

<comment><USER2> You're a patent attorney? Cool.

I'm a former law student who never quite got around to finishing my last class, and has kept up somewhat so tries to answer questions here and on Reddit until actual attorneys jump in. Some of my answers have been voted way up, so there is some danger people might actually listen to them.

Great to see an actual patent attorney around so that if I get something wrong there's a chance it will get caught.

<comment><USER21> There's a lot of misinformation out there. Keep fighting the good fight.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


GitHub language specific trends - <AUTHOR> http://gitly.co/ You can grab a daily dose of what's trending on GitHub for your favourite languages. <comment><AUTHOR> Always wanted to be able to get a daily mail of whats trending on GitHub for languages I'm interested in, Ruby and Objective-C.

So I built this. Hope it helps others.

<comment><USER2> I'm surprised Github lacks this feature. Good job!</comment></comment>


Hiring: The Lake Wobegon Strategy (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/03/hiring-lake-wobegon-strategy.html

<comment><USER2> This assumes from the outset that you know the difference between a good future employee and a bad one. Restating the problem so that the hard issues are out of scope makes any strategy look good.

How to find the perfect car: Just pick one better than all the previous cars you've owned.

How to find the perfect date: Only ask women more attractive than all your previous girlfriends

<comment><USER3> "This assumes from the outset that you know the difference between a good future employee and a bad one." -- Not really; his simulation assumed the hiring process had error bars of 15%.

<comment><USER4> It should probably be a lot higher than that.

<comment><USER5> And that only further proves the importance of Norvig's point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While interesting, I wanted to point out that this is very old (2006) and may have changed somewhat since.

Now that they've grown to a certain size and have offices in different places, I would imagine they (just logistically) have to hire at the "site" level rather than at the company level now, which would encourage each site to bring in employees at a different mean than the entire company itself (i.e. like the hiring manager issue).

<comment><USER7> Not really. I was given a choice of offices during my interview process in 2008, when they had more employees then than they do now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't care what weaknesses you can find in this post or Google's strategy, the fact that they're thinking about talent in this way is impressive.

Typically HR and statistical analysis don't mix.

</comment><comment><USER9> I worked with someone who told me about a hiring strategy he encountered at a former employer. HR came across some study that showed that people with high IQs were the most likely to have personnel issues (or didn't work as well on a team, or something like that). So they decided to avoid these personnel problems by giving job candidates IQ tests and only hiring those with IQs that weren't above the company's mean IQ. I kid you not.

<comment><USER10> Was this the Police Force. They regularly reject people who are too smart, because they would get bored in the job.

<comment><USER11> I've heard this story, but I can't find any evidence for "regularly". (I'm also not sure what form such evidence would take.)

The highest profile case I can find is of Robert Jordan, of New London, CT, who sued for discrimination because his job application was rejected for scoring too high [sic] on the IQ test. (He lost.) ([http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/09/nyregion/metro-news- briefs...](http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/09/nyregion/metro-news-briefs- connecticut-judge-rules-that-police-can-bar-high-iq-scores.html))

It appeals to my own personal prejudices, but it was also 10+ years ago.

<comment><USER9> From the article:

"I was eliminated on the basis of my intellectual makeup," he said. "It's the same as discrimination on the basis of gender or religion or race."

If he got what he was asking for, employers would not be able to reject job applicants that were not intelligent enough for the job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Would it be possible for the source for this simulation to be released? To allow others to play with this. Namely, I'd like to see:

* Effect of Microsoft/Netflix policy of periodically laying off the bottom n% of the company

* Effect of churn (which tends to hit both the bottom and top more so than the average).

* Seeding by initial founding engineers. Founders generally have to be strongly competent engineers (95th-98th percentile), but not very many are actually 99.9th percentile "10x" engineers (e.g., Brad Fitzpatrick of Livejournal, Bill Joy of Sun, Max Levchin of Paypal).

* Speaking of "Nx engineers", how about a logarithmic (with log_2) scale of skill rather than a linear?

Of course, there is also the question: an interview shows tests aptitude (and an error rate of the interview process implies error rate in determining aptitude), but more factors play a role in actual measured performance. I wonder if this is factored in to the metrics:

      foreach interview_score in range(1,5):
        foreach year in range(1,4):
          foreach performance_score in range(1,5):
            p ( performance_score | interview_score ) at year

A company very likely must (by law) have performance_score data and it should be easy to reconstruct interview score data (unless interviewers are sloppy about writing down their feedback and decisions are made by a hiring manager based on oral input).

</comment><comment><USER13> Here's a more detailed simulation that I just wrote in javascript:

\- I assume an error margin in our ability to evaluate employees.

\- I assume an applicant pool that isn't necessarily centered on z=0.

\- I evaluate z-scores, not percentile.

\- I calculate the average number of interviews for a successful hire.

<http://fizx.github.com/hiring/>

</comment><comment><USER14> I can't take seriously the assumption that skill level in this context is a scalar.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, I'd really like to know how they get the Y-axis. All of the google interview recaps I've ever read have made it seem as though candidates aren't likely to get the same interview.

That said, it could be that their interview questions are like the questions on the SAT, or GRE, with the difficulty being normalized in some way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hmm, when I looked up "The Lake Wobegon effect" on Wikipedia, it linked to "Illusory superiority." I'm guessing that's not quite what Google is going for here.

<comment><USER17> I was wondering about that as well.

In Lake Wobegon, "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." The Lake Wobegon Effect is one where most people think they are above average at something they are good at.

In this case, I guess they're just hiring so that everyone is above average. It makes some sense, but it does have a darker double-meaning.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What I found interesting was that the no hiring manager strategy doesn't help much... also I wonder where they got the data from for other hiring strategies that they don't use.

<comment><USER18> That was just a Monte Carlo simulation.

If you change the parameters of the simulation, you will get different outcomes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Here is how to get hired at Google:

1\. Start and sell at least one company. 2\. Set a world record - the more obscure the better. 3\. Have a Ph.D - it doesn't matter what it is in. 4\. Know at least one manager at Google. 5\. Do all of the above before your 25.

<comment><USER11> Sure. Do that, and you can get hired anywhere.

1, 2, 3 are by themselves exceptional-- pretty much by definition, setting a world record in anything is unusual. Having started and sold a company means you've built something worth real money. (The Ph. D. is similar, though it has a different metric.)

[Really, it'd be a lot easier to study algorithms and graph theory and ace the interview.]

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> All this really is is an application of micro economics to your hiring policy. In an ideal world this strategy works but as others have pointed out, without perfect data, the noise builds up so that it is hard if not impossible to maintain a rising average.

</comment><comment><USER21> 1\. Who says growth must come from hiring better or even more employees?

2\. Does Google feel they already make the most of the talent they have?

3\. Do existing Google employees feel they themselves are in the best position to shine?

<comment><USER22> Regarding #2: I think they're not making the most of the talent they have. Google does some great/cool things. But I expect a lot more of that based on the number of employees they have, and the average level of talent/IQ they supposedly have. I suspect the discrepancy is caused by the dampening effect of having a large infrastructure and bureaucracy, and a possible clone/conformity effect from their hiring process. I believe their hiring process mostly filters for the wrong thing. At least with respect to folks who aren't already famous to begin with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> For a lot of employees, the project they'll be working on and what their manager is like are major factors in whether they want a job. Wouldn't a "no hiring manager" strategy cause problems because of this?

<comment><USER24> I understand (at least in the past) Google makes it easy to move between groups, so you are really joining a company, rather than a group. In most companies if you don't like your manager, your best option is to find another job.</comment></comment>


The Case of the Unexplained FTP Connections - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2012/10/30/3529266.aspx <comment><USER2> "Not realizing the server was on the perimeter, they had opened the SQL Server's port in the local firewall, left it with a blank admin account, and enabled xp_cmdshell"

As the Mark states in the article, this is terrible even within the network, let alone on the perimeter. Microsoft actually recommends against running Exchange and SQL Server on the same box anyways [1] for performance reasons.

Is there a good intention that would motivate someone to install something on a production box, leave it in an insecure config, and not document it?

[1] [http://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/aa997379(v=exchg....](http://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/aa997379\(v=exchg.80\).aspx)</comment>


More learning, less time - <AUTHOR> https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/10/07/growing-your-toolbox/ <comment><USER2> Good points. If you work in this industry and the place allows some self learning, you are extremely lucky.</comment>


The Googlebot runs Javascript - <AUTHOR> http://clipperhouse.com/blog/post/The-Googlebot-runs-Javascript.aspx

<comment><USER2> I wish the AdSense bot would also render javascript before deciding what ads to deliver. Lots of my pages have very little static content and are rendered dynamically (think Twitter mashups). This causes AdSense to deliver completely irrelevant ads most of the time :(

<comment><USER3> How do you get Google to index you properly?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm hearing from some SEO folks that since Google started running CSS and JS, standard DIVs that get shown as tooltips or accordions or sliders now count against your page quality because CSS and JS hide those divs until the user hovers over something or clicks something (which the Googlebot doesn't do).

They're saying these are counted as hidden text, and considered a spam technique. What I see people using them for is usability and self-discovery.

Anyone know any data on this?

<comment> brown9-2 Do the SEO people have any actual evidence or numbers that they base that assertion on?

Seems like so much "accepted wisdom" from SEO folks is just speculation.

<comment><USER5> professional SEO == dowser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> it also fills out forms on your pages to see where they lead: [http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/04/crawling-...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/04/crawling- through-html-forms.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> That actually makes good sense. It would be an excellent spam page deterrent, since most cloakers are very handy in using javascript to diguise the destination of the page.

At some point the filtering must get so complex that simply running the javascript on the page and looking at the output is the simpler solution.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll buy this once cached results start showing text added to the DOM using javascript.

I suspect that the googlebot found a link containing a url to the resource in question, and crawled it.</comment>


Show HN: VoilaNorbert, find anyone email address - <AUTHOR> https://www.voilanorbert.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys,

I wanted to share Voila Norbert with you and have your feedback. We launched this project about a year ago, and we built it in less than two days (just a minimal product for us). We then forgot about it and left it as is.

But a month ago, someone posted it on Product Hunt ([http://www.producthunt.com/posts/viola- norbert](http://www.producthunt.com/posts/viola-norbert)) and it received quite a great amount of people. Since then, our project is featured on many other popular website, including (at our greatest surprise), LifeHacker! ([http://lifehacker.com/norbert-finds-and-verifies-peoples- ema...](http://lifehacker.com/norbert-finds-and-verifies-peoples-email- addresses-1653163235)).

We had in mind to rework the project, fix the false positives, check for catch-all and improve the UI along the way, and it's finally done and online now. We also took the opportunity to implement some paid versions for those who wants more. Maybe it'll work, maybe no, we'll see that in the future.

The mobile version is not yet ready but should be implemented pretty soon.

I think it's time to share it with the Hacker News community, hence the post :)</comment>


Show HN: C++ Async HTTPS server built with oat++ framework and LibreSSL - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/oatpp/oatpp-examples/tree/master/tls-libressl <comment><AUTHOR> Asynchronous HTTPS server built with oat++ Async API.

Features:

\- HTTPS based on LibreSSL

\- Basic endpoint with DTO serialization to JSON

\- Asynchronous proxy endpoint to remote service</comment>


On quality and code size - <AUTHOR> http://www.bureau14.fr/blogea/index.php/2011/09/on-quality-and-code-size/

<comment><USER2> On the one hand he is right code that has received a good clean up is usually shorter and cleaner, on the other hand a coworker makes code shorter by leaving out error handling("that will never happen" sort of thinking. )</comment>


Your Product is Going to Fail if you Don't Ask Users to Pay - <AUTHOR> http://whatspinksthinks.com/2013/11/18/your-product-is-bullshit-and-youre-going-to-fail-if-you-dont-ask-users-to-pay/ <comment><USER2> > If you EVER plan on charging for your product you have to ask for money NOW

There are actually a lot of good reasons to wait before you start charging. Like, getting situated, getting everything working, working out the kinks, evaluating possible monetization models, etc. etc.

> The second one usually refers to media companies and massive networks like > Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. If you're the next Twitter, Techcrunch, > Facebook or Instagram then kudos. For the other 99.99999% of you who fall in > the first group with the rest of us, if you haven't asked your users to pay > yet, then your startup is completely bullshit until you do.

Uhh, no. A lot of companies can work on this model. And do so. The examples are numerous.

And, what is it with this condescending style of writing? If the content of the article wasn't full of reductive, hand-wavy half-baked ideas, the arrogance in that entire piece would be forgivable. But that's not the situation it looks like.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Like, getting situated, getting everything working, working out the kinks, evaluating possible monetization models, etc. etc."

What does getting situated mean? Working out what kinks? People aren't paying for your product they're paying for what they believe your product to be. Kinks don't matter.

"Uhh, no. A lot of companies can work on this model. And do so. The examples are numerous."

Lets hear them.

"And, what is it with this condescending style of writing? If the content of the article wasn't full of reductive, hand-wavy half-baked ideas, the arrogance in that entire piece would be forgivable. But that's not the situation it looks like."

Sounds a lot like your feedback.

<comment><USER3> I think what you're missing is that there are very different kinds of startup. There is the high stakes "next facebook or bust" kind, where it makes a lot of sense to first grow a userbase, get a lot of investors to pay you and take it from there. And then there's the "we are starting a business" kind of startup you seem to be talking about. And a lot in between.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any examples?

<comment><USER3> I don't think examples are needed here, since this is just common sense. Also if you could reply to the actual content of my post, that would be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm trying to respond to the content of your post. If it's such common sense then it should be easy to come up with examples. I'd argue that there isn't much in between. Either you're building a company that has to sell a product or you're building a high growth monetize later company. This post is addressing the former option.

<comment><USER3> For the high stakes kind youtube or twitter are good examples. For the business kind every old little business around the corner is an example. Why do I need to spell this out to you? For in between - can't really be bothered to research this, so I'll just give you that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have a hard time taking provocative titles and harshly written articles like these serious. Especially when the author has no _real, credible_ experience building sustainable businesses.

<comment><AUTHOR> So you disagree with what the post is saying?

<comment><USER5> I think you may be a little _too_ active in your own post's discussion. You don't need to reply to every comment, especially if all you're going to do is argue and shut down any critical debate.

<comment><AUTHOR> How am I shutting down debates? I think it's important to respond to anyone who has a unique perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's very naive and silly to make blanket statements like this.

Charging immediately just because you're "supposed to" is just as bad a strategy as not charging because you're "supposed to."

Some business models are "get as many users as possible, get acquired, and live as a loss leader for a larger organization" and that's perfectly fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Some business models are "get as many users as possible, get acquired, and live as a loss leader for a larger organization" and that's perfectly fine."

I agree, and address that in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there a Marketer News for these posts?

<comment><USER8> Starting and growing businesses is very much within the scope of Hacker News.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I see what you're getting at, but your language may have been a little bit too hard-hitting.

Shall we at least agree on the idea that "maybe some products should not be free and the creators should consider paying for them"?

<comment><AUTHOR> "maybe some products should not be free and the creators should consider paying for them"?

Not sure what you mean by the creators should consider paying for them.

<comment><USER9> Hah, typo! I meant, "charging" not "paying".</comment></comment></comment>


Young, Confident and Flying, Virus Be Damned - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/travel/coronavirus-travel-deals.html <comment><USER2> I keep hearing this but i also dont seem to see cheap flights, maybe its because im in the UK but so far flights from here dont seem to have dropped in price much if at all to the places ive searched (US/Japan/Korea/Denmark/Sweden) in fact the cheapest to japan is more expensive than ive paid in the last 3 years. id been hoping itd lower prices so i could grab a few bargains but as yet no such luck</comment>


China's most famous dissident, Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo has died in custody - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1023459/nobel-peace-prize-winner-liu-xiaobo-imprisoned-by-china-for-writing-seven-sentences-has-died-in-custody/ <comment><USER2> His name is not searchable in weibo, and news about him in China are like "Liu Xiaobo and Nobel Prize are double jokes". Feel so sad.</comment>


Germans Furious After Bundesbank Calls For People To Work Until Age 69 - <AUTHOR> http://www.thelocal.de/20160821/work-until-69-bundesbanks-call-riles-germans <comment><USER2> This is why you should never rely on any government to take care of you in retirement. Save for your own damn retirement and retire on your own damn schedule.</comment>


Cryptography Could Protect Privacy in Covid-19 Contact-Tracing Apps - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-contact-tracing-apps-cryptography/ <comment><AUTHOR> It seems like bloom filters of geohashes, salted with a secret key, would work for this. Has it already been proposed and shot down?</comment>


Enthought Canopy - Comprehensive Python analysis environment - <AUTHOR> https://enthought.com/products/canopy/

<comment><USER2> I have become such a huge fan of doing analysis work in iPython's notebooks lately, I am curious how this will improve on it.

So far nothing works for me. The kernel keeps crashing and the package manager or login screen fail to work on my connection because I am behind a proxy. There are no options to set the proxy connection parameters, from what I can find. I would assume if they are targeting enterprise customers they should probably help with package management behind an aggressive proxy.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been using EPD for a long time and it's been a rock solid way of installing the full scientific python stack, especially on a Mac. Very curious to see where this goes, although it seems more targeted at the Matlab crowd who develops in their IDE/computing environment.

<comment><USER3> Just FYI, Canopy includes the same Python distribution as EPD with the analysis environment on top. It includes a new graphical package manager that simplifies some package update tasks.</comment></comment>


Beneath a Steel Sky - <AUTHOR> https://www.filfre.net/2020/07/beneath-a-steel-sky/ <comment><USER2> They just launched a sequel yesterday. [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1146310/Beyond_a_Steel_Sk...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1146310/Beyond_a_Steel_Sky/)

<comment><USER3> Prematurely: [https://twitter.com/radogado/status/1276862755442737153](https://twitter.com/radogado/status/1276862755442737153)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Indie game dev is one of the hardest programming there is. Doing web dev feels like child's play in comparison.

The sheer amount of work that goes into making a game or did before things like unity came into picture. I remember reading super long articles on NeHe just to detect collision between two items. On top of that you need amazing graphics and a good story plus your usual marketing to sell.

Also gamers are usually the most vocal critics of your work (they either love it or hate it). It's just amazing that so many new indie games are released.

</comment><comment><USER5> Oh the nostalgia! I remember that first scene like it was yesterday. And also never making it past that first scene either. Games were hard. Or I was stupid. Not sure.

<comment><USER6> No, some games were hard (don't remember Beneath that well as I only ever played the first 20 minutes and wasn't hooked in) and some classic point'n'click had really illogical and weird solutions. It's not so much that they were hard but some puzzles really had no rules and you could only progress by sheer luck or means of clicking everywhere or combining anything. It was unfair.

I loved the monkey island serie's art and lore but some of its puzzles are just a waste of time. But there is a very vocal minority screaming on the internet at the top of their lungs that those puzzles are the best thing ever. _shrug_

edit: Just googled that car hair mustache thing from a sibling comment (couldn't remember which game it was, AAMOF I didn't play it) and look the first comment of that article:

[https://kotaku.com/how-we-survived-adventure-gamings-most- ha...](https://kotaku.com/how-we-survived-adventure-gamings-most-hair- tearingly-r-5903932)

 _I think part of the death of adventure gaming is due to the internet and FAQs. The majority of people will burn through a typical adventure game in an hour or two by looking up what to do any time they get even mildly perplexed. Yeah, there will be those of us who refuse to look, but there will be a large share that spoil their own experience and then complain about it._

See ? You have to suffer to enjoy it and those who didn't or took a shortcut are just whiners who ruined their experience of the game.

<comment><USER7> Some games just had a really bad UI, too.

I remember spending a lot of time _very_ frustrated with a game called Teenagent because IIRC to open the inventory you had to move the mouse to the top left corner and keep it there for a while. As far as I remember there were no indications that this was the case, and it just seemed to me that the inventory would randomly pop up somehow.

Of course it's possible the game might have told me that in text somewhere, but back then I did not really understand English, so I'll call it bad UI design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Oh, fond memories from 1995 or so.. This game was very different from LucasArts quests, and was very tough to beat, especially in an age without walkthroughs available online. It took me and my friends roughly three weeks to solve all puzzles.

The only other game that was as tough to beat was the great BloodNet.

</comment><comment><USER9> FYI:

        # apt get beneath-a-steel-sky

<comment><USER10> Or just download scummvm and download the files here:

[https://de1.eu.scummvm.net/extras/Beneath%20a%20Steel%20Sky/](https://de1.eu.scummvm.net/extras/Beneath%20a%20Steel%20Sky/)</comment></comment>


Why I Lost Faith In Bitcoin As A Money Transfer Protocol - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/01/why-i-lost-faith-in-bitcoin-as-a-money-transfer-protocol/ <comment><USER2> The bears are out today. If the poster had spent the btc in the EU rather than converting back to fiat, it would have been a nice quick experience. If the poster had jumped through the kyc hoops at Coinbase and bought instantly, the USD price changes would not have effected his trade. This post is a new person complaining about the learning curve. The valid point implied here is 'there is friction for new users'.</comment>


Bill Gates: I assume my phone's not being tapped - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57617672-71/bill-gates-i-assume-my-phones-not-being-tapped/ <comment><USER2> I refuse to believe he could be that naive, especially considering the amount of wealth and power he has.

In a recent interview with Wired, when asked about NSA activities and data privacy in general:

 _Gates: " ... There are legitimate reasons for the government to watch what's going on, particularly with nuclear and biological weapons. So it'd be nice if there was a way that some part of the government that we really trusted was looking at that information. Right now, people are going, "Oh my gosh!" and you wonder—did they not think anything was going on? But it's probably good there is now an explicit conversation."_ [1]

He also has, or at the very least had, a Top Secret security clearance. [2]

While the purpose is debatable, one of the most likely reasons was so he could receive State Department briefings prior to meeting with foreign leaders and businessmen. A lot of that information would likely have come from NSA intercepts.

Another purpose could have been to facilitate Microsoft's cooperation with the NSA on software backdoors, cryptographic or otherwise.

[1] [http://www.wired.com/business/2013/11/bill-gates-bill- clinto...](http://www.wired.com/business/2013/11/bill-gates-bill-clinton- wired/all/)

[2] [http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/bill_gates_has_top_secret_c...](http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/bill_gates_has_top_secret_clearance/)

<comment><USER3> > He also has, or at the very least had, a Top Secret security clearance.

Top Secret clearance is reviewed every five years and in theory is revoked once the person no longer has a Need to Know. Since Bill is no longer active at Microsoft, I would _guess_ that he does not have a Need to Know.

<comment><USER4> He's still the chairman of the Microsoft board. I read bloomberg for most of my business news and lots of op-ed contributors there stipulate that this is making it harder for Microsoft to find a replacement CEO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This reminded me about quote from "Player of Games" a Culture novel by Ian Banks.

Said by a character with diplomatic immunity after a particularly interesting anti government statement: "We pretend they do not listen to us and they pretend they do not hear anything."

<comment><AUTHOR> Except in this case, the pretense is getting less convincing with each passing day.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't matter how convincing it is or isn't as long as you are just choosing to pretend you believe it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands I can't tell whether to believe him or not. As someone with pretty deep technological experience, his naivety to such matters is a bit off putting to say the least.

<comment><USER7> Well Microsoft has blundered into trouble before by not paying attention to the real world. The whole antitrust thing and the amusing cock up over contractor/permanent employees.

I bet China and Russia might be interested in Billg's phone both from an industrial espionage and other more political point of view.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what monopoly does to a corporation in the long run! When Microsoft was completely dominating in the '90s, raking in billions of dollars in profit, they became lethargic. When they realized what was going on, it was too late.

<comment><USER7> No both of the examples are 1 showing the political naivety of Microsofts senior managers and 2 MS's HR being incompetent

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nobody seems to be talking about SMTP...

SMTP is the protocol that is used for basically all email, and it does not provide encryption. There are versions of the protocol that DO, however they cannot be used in isolation. Emails hop from source to destination via a bunch of SMTP relay servers, and since nearly all SMTP servers support the legacy protocol and do not support key exchange, encrypted SMTP traffic will bounce.

When you use gmail, your connection to Google is secure. But if the recipient of your message is not @gmail.com, the message leaves Google's servers in plain text over SMTP. If the recipient is @gmail.com, the message stays inside the Google network.

The point is, all of our emails traverse the internet in plain text unless we use custom solutions (eg. PGP at both endpoints) or send emails within a network (eg. Gmail to Gmail).

<comment><USER9> Google's (outgoing) servers will use STARTTLS if it is advertised by the destination mail server.

<comment><USER10> Never knew, do you a have a source on this? Not that I don't believe you, I just want to read more about it. A Chrome extension that shows you if STARTTLS is being used would be really neat.

<comment><USER9> Source: Me, who runs (among other things) mail servers for an ISP.

ETA:

        Received: from mail-pd0-f169.google.com (mail-pd0-f169.google.com [18.104.22.168])
        	(using TLSv1 with cipher RC4-SHA (128/128 bits))
        	(No client certificate requested)
        	by MAIL.MYDOMAIN.COM (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 1BBFA2909
        	for <email@example.com>; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 23:00:32 -0500 (EST)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11>
      Bill Gates: I assume my phone's not being tapped

                  ...but choose to modify my behavior anyway, of course! Oh, and buy more Microsoft stock, please!

Meanwhile...

Microsoft Offers Secure Windows … But Only to the Government

[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/04/air-force- windows/](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/04/air-force-windows/)

[http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2009/04/balmer...](http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2009/04/balmer_air_force.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER12> That's what Merkel said as well in a public TV interview.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tapping Merkel's phone would have a very different meaning as compared to tapping Gates' phone.

<comment><USER13> Indeed, it is quite likely that Merkel was less interesting at the time they started tapping her phone than Bill Gates is now (or has been since Win95). Her phone was already being tapped in 2002, when she had freshly become opposition leader in Parliament.

If push comes to shove, I wonder if waving around that "US citizen" badge actually protects you from _any_ snooping.

<comment><AUTHOR> Tapping a politician's phone is always more "interesting", especially if the politician is from another country. I don't think the "US citizen" badge means anything anymore. If you are a prominent subject who is even slightly important, you come under the radar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> He is working with billions - so it is very precious information where he is going to invest or withdraw.

<comment><USER7> And even his charity work could be considered an expression of American soft power.

<comment><AUTHOR> Isn't that a bit pessimistic?

<comment><USER15> That's just reality. Pessimism would be saying that means no good can come of it, which GP did not say.

<comment><AUTHOR> He is relating Bill Gates' charity to US consolidating its power. Be that as it may, it is not an aid given by one country to another country. It is like putting a pessimistic spin on something good. Don't you think so?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well depending on your definition it probably is not tapped - merely the metadata collected. And that is I suspect Gates' point - we have entered a world where the genie will not go back in the bottle, and there is only one solution - carriers to offer protection. And that's an expensive solution.

</comment><comment><USER17> If Bill Gates really thinks his phone is not being tapped I have a bridge to sell him.

</comment><comment><USER18> Since he has a vested interest in the public maintaining faith in high tech companies, his response is neither surprising nor objective.

Even the gods can be self serving.

</comment><comment><USER19> He's probably just covering his ass. I guess he learned some operational security since his mails were used as evidence in the anti-trust trial.

</comment><comment><USER20> The main owner of the american company creator of the most used operated system in desktops around the world (in all countries, enemies and allies of the USA government) may not be the most trustable source in this matter. Call it "ad hominem" but let's not pretend it hasn't been this way when money and government are involved.

</comment><comment><USER21> First he is the authority on speaking about poverty and now he is the authority on speaking about privacy. Oh the irony...

<comment><USER22> And here is how he discredited the biggest charity of the world with a single sentende.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I figured he was just talking figuratively, speaking for the Everyman.

</comment><comment><USER24> Am I the only one who interpreted him as saying he _ought_ to be able to assume that his phone calls/emails are private? He clarifies:

"So there is a basic sense that whoever is providing that technology has to make sure it's secure."

I think he's just saying it's the job of the mail service to provide security, not something the end user should need to worry about.</comment>


Is Russian ownership of Facebook a threat to National Security? - <AUTHOR> http://www.qrimp.com/blog/blog.Is-Russian-ownership-of-Facebook-a-threat-to-national-security.html

<comment><USER2> People in the USA should chill out. Everything is a threat. Always about the "terrorists".

</comment><comment><USER3> Theirs or ours?

The article presumes that minority ownership or even board membership gives you access private or proprietary personal information. Ain't so, unless Facebook is incredibly stupid. On second thought, given some of their past actions, maybe the concern is legitimate.

</comment><comment><USER4> Jesus! Someone should really get out of the cave sometimes.

A small fraction of that money can buy hundreds of thousands of records of credit card details, ssn, drivers licence scans, bank accounts, passwords to all kinds of services.

Please, get real.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not at 2-3%. And if a foreign power wanted to compromise Facebook user privacy (and through it, American security), they'd infiltrate their staff/systems, not buy a minority stake.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yes, everyone panic!</comment>


Caffeine is more effective than nootropics startup startup HVMN (neé Nootrobox) - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/30/hvmn-nootrobox-study-smart-pill-less-effective-than-caffeine.html <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the clunky + somewhat grammatically incorrect title. I kept running into the character limit.

What Soylent is to Ensure, HVMN is to "fitness supplements."

<comment><USER2> I don't know what the title is trying to say, but I'm willing to bet the title is not what you intended. ("Caffeine is more effective than nootropics startup startup HVMN (neé Nootrobox)")

<comment><AUTHOR> Lmao you're definitely correct, the repetition of "startup" was unintended.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> For clarification, this study says that a cup of coffee is more effective than HVMN's SPRINT which contains the following:

Caffeine 100 mg

L-Theanine 200 mg

Vitamin B6 20 mg

Vitamin B12 60 mcg

Vinpocetine 40 mg

L-Tyrosine 400 mg

<comment><USER4> Formula has no real nootropics (except perhaps for Vinpocetine.)

A real nootropic formula wouod typically have at least one -racetam nootropic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Plenty of substances that aren't a *racetam are considered nootropics. That may have been the definition at one point but it's no longer so narrow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't know if caffeine is more effective or not but tell you what ... Sprint does nothing for me.</comment>


The Most Beautiful Program Ever Written - <AUTHOR> https://www.lvguowei.me/post/the-most-beautiful-program-ever-written/ <comment><USER2> The "it's so cool you can implement a Lisp interpreter in Lisp" people rarely seem to appreciate Forth.</comment>