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App Store 90 day refund policy found in developer contract

With the developer picking up the bill for Apple’s commission
By Spanner Spencer
App Store 90 day refund policy found in developer contract
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Earlier in the day, Kotaku picked up on a seemingly new passage in the iPhone developer’s contract, which insists game companies accept a 90 day refund on App Store products for the end user - similar in vein to the Android Market’s 24 hour returns policy (only 89 days longer, of course).

On top of this, Apple retains its 30 per cent commission, which the developer must agree to foot the bill for. Naturally this has caused more than a few perturbing chest pains for the iPhone development community.

Pocket Gamer did some digging into this policy, and uncovered the following passage in the Apple developer’s contract:

“6.3 In the event that Apple receives any notice or claim from any end-user that: (i) the end-user wishes to cancel its license to any of the Licensed Applications within (90) days of the date of download of that Licensed Application by that end-user; or (ii) a Licensed Application fails to conform to Your Specifications or Your Product warranty or the requirements of any applicable law, Apple may refund to the end-user the full amount of the price paid by the end-user for that Licensed Application. In the event that Apple refunds any such price to an end-user, You shall reimburse, or grant Apple a credit for, an amount equal to the price for that Licensed Application. Apple will have the right to retain its commission on the sale of that Licensed Application, notwithstanding the refund of the price to the end-user.”

What’s interesting, however, is that it turns out this passage has always been in the developer’s contract - it simply seems to have gone unnoticed until the similar Android policy caught the media’s attention.

Whether it’s new or old, however, the policy does appear to be open to abuse and undeniably weighted against the developer, who stands to lose a lot of money (directly into Apple’s bank account) should a large scale refund ever be issued.