So we've had trouble in the U.S. and Europe surrounding submission approval for apps, as well as flaws in the system which allow spam and useless apps to flood the Marketplace. We now turn to Japan where a social bookmarking app, Hatena Viewer, has been rejected due to links within the app pointing to 2ch/Futaba (Japanese 4chan equivalent).
Hatena Viewer is a Hatena Bookmark client, which shares the same functionality as Digg. AppHub stated the rejection reason as the following:
"It appears the application contains several articles linking to 2chan."
They really don't like anything 2ch, 4chan, etc. related, and this is what bothers the Japanese developers. Due to this type of app publishing user generated content, the developers can't control what is linked to or submitted. Also, what's more interesting, Hatena Bookmark for iOS is available without age restrictions (link below).
As well as the Hatena Viewer app being rejected, a 2ch viewer app was also turned down due to the following reason, provided by the Windows Phone Policy Team:
"Windows Marketplace does not currently support age restricted content. Therefore all content must be appropriate for users to the of 13. It has been determined that content from sources such as 2chan and 4chan are not allowed in the Marketplace.While we cannot provide specific instruction to you as to how you can modify your application, we would recommend ensuring all content is appropriate for users to the age of 13 and the adult categories are removed."
Nanapho.jp sums it up pretty effectively:
- Currently there's no mechanism in place on the Marketplace with regards to content with age requirements
- All content must suit 13 year olds
- 2ch and 4chan's content is not permitted
- Adapt to the age of 13 if you want to update all of the content within application, to remove the adult appeal
What do you make of the situation?
Source: iOS Hatena Bookmark, Nanapho.jp (Translate) & Nanapho.jp (Translate)
