The reported PLA 1.2 guideline issue is in regards to the seller and company names associated with your app not reflect the name “COMPANY NAME” in the app or its metadata, as required by section 1.2 of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement.

Published an update for an App 2 monthes ago.

It has been rejected many times for different reasons. One of those was PLA 1.2.

After a long e-mail conversation, one day Apple phoned me and start a conversation to explain the reasons of the App rejection.

Here is what they told me (and then wrote me on my Apple Developer Account discussion) about PLA 1.2:

"To be in compliance, unique apps developed for individual pharmacies..." (the rejected App was for a pharmacy but i think it can be read as "client") "...would need to be submitted under a seller name and company name that reflects the individual pharmacy."

because of this tipical crypting way to explain their reasons, I asked for more clearness. Here is what they answered:

"To clarify, unique apps developed for individual pharmacies will need to be submitted under a seller name and company name that reflects the individual pharmacy as required by App Store Review Program License Agreement PLA 1.2."

So, finally, I think that with the new PLA 1.2, if a Developer Agency wants to publish an App on behalf of a client, a new Apple Developer Account is needed.

This has been my experience. After months of fighting Apple their response is consistent, although a bit biased. Yes, if you are a dev company you will need to setup new accounts for you clients. That part of their answer was consistent regardless of the fact we have distribution agreements with our clients. The biased part of this is that it appears that only a couple divisions of the app store apps are having this rule enforced. Medical (our industry) is one of those areas (or, so they said in a phone call).

We ran into the same issue. Basically it's a trademark issue. I'm not arguing if it's right or wrong. But the solution:

1. Either you have to list in the developer account of your customer.
2. Or legally acquire the trademark and brand name of your customer (may be limited for the purpose of AppStore/PlayStore/Digital Marketing)

I know point 2 sounds a bit off. I agree it is.

Let's take an example:

Developer: FooBar Software
App: No1 Pharma

In AppStore listing, the seller of the app is the developer. So from the user point of view, if you look at the listing on AppStore, it would say the app "No1 Pharma" is being sold by "FooBar Software". This doesn't sound right.

Another case:

The publishing rights of Harry Potter Books (acc. to wiki) is owned by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Scholastic (US)

Developer: Bloomsbury Publishing
App: Harry Potter

This will sound right, in spite of the fact that the seller name and app name did not match. The listing would read "Bloomsbury Publishing" is the seller of the app "Harry Potter". This sounds right. So Bloomsbury can publish all the trademarks/brands it owns as different apps in it's developer account.

Perhaps AppStore might choose to differentiate the developers from sellers. Because developers are not sellers. That's the reality.

Let's say IBM develops the "Harry Potter" app for "Bloomsbury", then the listing should read:

Developer: IBM
Seller: Bloomsbury
App: Harry Potter

Hope this helps.

>Perhaps AppStore might choose to differentiate the developers from sellers. Because developers are not sellers. That's the reality.

The reality is that as long as the dev can evidence rights to sell, differentiation plays no role. Since day one, the dev agreement has stated that should apple ask for proof of rights to use any of the app's content, the dev should be prepared to show it. Apple only needs to apply the existing agreement, not come up with additional qualifiers, which typically open more holes than they close.

As always, bad actors in the store have now apparently forced Apple's hand. They deserve the credit for this latest enforcement and any ire from devs otherwise playing by the rules that may unfortunately feel the same heat.

Just for information, I solved this issue only by changing the Copyright.

- The App name is : "Pharmacie Gal"

- Dev account : Jerome Nguyen

- Copyright was : 2016 VotreAppli.fr

I changed the copyright to "2017 Pharmacie GAL, Jerome Nguyen (Development)" and it passed.

Good luck guys.

This doesnt work for me 😟

These rules has been enforced only to newly created app not the existing apps since its really hard to understand how to fix this ?

I recived the contact team support Apple.

They responded a my app is of health category and this category apps must be posted by the account client for PLA 1.2 reason.

Not explain for me the real reason (with more details) the PLA 1.2 and apps of heath have this restriction now and passed me the link to send appeal this rejection to the Apple.

I sent the appeal and i´m waiting for the answer from the team apple.

So, my app not yet is in with the new version.

I added as you said and also submitted again and keepin my fingers crossed now, I'll update you all once it's approved or rejected

An update on our company's attempts at meeting this requirement.

We have been setting up all our clients with their own developer accounts, transfer those apps to our client accounts, and submitting updates to our clients accounts. This has been a huge shift in how we do business and has become a bit of a nightmare in terms of managing those apps for our clients.

Regardless, it is still a crap-shoot with Apple should our client be a holdings company that owns multiple brands. We had one client that has 12 brands (we white-labeled our app for each brand) and 6 were rejected for PLA 1.2 and the other 6 were approved...

After yet another round of Apple Repeals and phone calls we are now told that a new developer guideline published at Apple's dev conference exists stating the following:

guideline 4.2.9: Apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected.

Apple said we are ok on PLA 1.2 now, but now our apps will be rejected due to 4.2.9 as our apps are considered a "commercialized template", white-labeled app. We provide this service to give our clients (small and medium sized businesses) a collective resource pool to be able to compete technologically with the large businesses that can afford a full dev team and to have their own branded space on the app stores. However, Apple has now decided that providing this level of service to our clients is no longer viable. They are saying that we can only provide one app per client (translated, developer account), but may still get rejected due to 4.2.9.

As a warning to all who provide white-labeled apps to your clients you will be subject to app rejections according to this guideline.

Do you have any new solutions? 😢

I still see many application publishers that publish applications for their clients without problems. Why are some publishers able to publish applications for their customers? What is the solution?

Did anyone find a solution to this?

I am the creator of the app and got the same rejection.

Does this new rule extend to Organisations like Sports Clubs?

If so then this kills this Business for me. Totally unworkable at a time when Apps are becoming less appealing with Desktop Notifications.

Apple have helped rush on the death of Apps as a Business.

To be honest, this is really a total letdown to the industry. I am located in Indonesia, where I am charging the amount of IDR 1,000,000 / year for iOS & Android app for small businesses like restaurants, cafe, shops, etc. That amounts to only around USD75 / year. Anything more than that will cause clients to not wanna make apps anymore. I even create apps for businesses for FREE just to gain their trust, with ad-supported content to cover our costs. Now thanks to Apple's new 1.2 PLA, we had to ask clients to register an Apple Developer Program at $99/year? The price alone is already killing my business. Sales are now dwindling more than 50% of what we used to earn. I am only offering Android app to customers now, without the possibility of iOS app unless clients are able/willing to pay for the $99 / year ADP membership.

So basically what I am saying:

1. Indonesia is a country where USD 100 - 150 is a common labor wages average. Charging for website more than that has a high decline percentage, not to mention apps.
2. 1.2 PLA forcing clients to have $99 / year ADP membership will become the main source of decline.
3. I have a 60-70% rate of biz owners who don't have credit cards and/or unwilling to pay $99/year even if they have credit cards. Indonesia is a country with high distrust concern towards CC usage, Paypal, online payment, etc.
4. I have client who has like 20 brands (running many e-commerce brands), who will never ever pay for $99 / year x 20 brands = $1,980 / year. She just said this is crazy.
5. Android app market is looking more profitable now that iOS App Store looks like it's gearing to become more elitist.

I will keep watching on this thread, any help to solve this issue is deeply appreciated. Meanwhile, it will be a bye-bye from us to Apple Store. Good luck guys!

Please, may I ask you how can you say:

"we can only provide one app per client (translated, developer account)"?

Is there an offical Apple declaration for that or is all about your experience?

Because am not sure about it at all 😢