I’ve been looking into third-party app analytics services such as Mopapp and appFigures for a while now. There’s something that worries me about these services, though: they ask for your Apple ID and password.
Wait, what? Are you sure this is a good idea? Am I even allowed to give out this information? I’m not sure, so I decided to check. And here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth – Section 1 of Apple’s developer agreement (emphasis mine):
The Apple ID and password you use to login as a Registered Apple Developer cannot be shared in any way or with any one. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your Apple ID and password and for any activity in connection with your account.
That seems pretty cut-and-dry. Sharing your login information is a violation of the agreement. So what’s the deal? Is it only ‘sharing’ if I give my login info to a person? Do we simply ignore the issue because these third-party analytics services are so useful?
Considering that you can get banned from the app store for violating the developer agreement, this seems like a pretty serious matter. Granted, fraud might be a completely different level of violation than sharing your login info, but given Apple’s history of somewhat arbitrary decisions, I’m not sure that I want to risk it.
What do you think?