More transparency and greater protection for developers: this is the new European law for app stores

A new regulation came into force on 12 July last in the European Union. Through it, the distribution platforms of digital applications and games such as the App Store, Google Play Store or Steam will have stricter measures in their relationship with the developers who sell their apps and games there. For example, they will not be able to remove your app from the store without 30 days' notice.

This new regulation focuses especially on the relationship between developers and app stores. In other words, it does not affect the consumer so much as it affects the developer of the content. The general idea is to offer greater protection to the creator of the app or game who distributes it on third-party platforms such as Apple and Google stores or, in general, any intermediary between the developer and the end consumer.

The main measures covered by the new EU regulation

Available on the official website of the European Union, the new law includes different measures that will be applied to restrict the power that an app or game store can have over the content it has. Among the most important are the following:

• Make clear how trends and ratings work: Developers must be able to know how the algorithms for rating apps and games work, as well as the popularity or trend lists. This is to offer the same opportunities to both large and small developers to position their apps and games. Just as SEO is a practice that is used to position web pages in search engines, ASO is a very common practice in app stores and consists of using tricks and techniques that better position an app or game to offer greater popularity.

• Make it clear if certain developers have special treatment: Generally large developers or companies have special deals that allow them to skip steps in-app and game releases. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, for example in Apple's App Store companies like Google or Facebook don't need to pass the common checks for app publishing and updating because they are "trusted" developers. With this, they can for example quickly correct a bug that can affect a large number of users. What the new European law calls for is to make clear what kind of treatment these developers receive.

• To warn in advance and why an app or game is going to be removed from the platform: Perhaps the change that will have the most impact. It means that app stores will no longer be able to remove an application from their platform without first giving 30 days' notice to the developer, clearly explaining why they are doing so. There are some exceptions such as malware. A clear example of where this would have been effective is with all the fuss the HEY app had recently with its removal from the App Store.

• Simpler contracts that cannot be changed without prior notice: The conditions of use of the stores should be clear and in a language understandable to any developer (without using very complex legal terms). Also, if there are changes in the conditions must be notified 15 days in advance to the developers.

• Transparency in data collection: Or in other words: more GDPR. It must be made clear what information is collected by the apps and games and by the platform itself. Often these data separately do not provide or serve to identify a user but together they do.

While all of these measures have a clear focus on the developer, they can affect the end-user in one way or another. For example, it will prevent an application that we use from disappearing from the store overnight because it does not comply with some standard of the platform. Or, at least, the developer will be notified and will be able to warn his users or make the appropriate changes.