Consumer protection, or free-market obstruction?

OPINION:

My recent column regarding AppEsteem cited industry reports and leaks from the world of anti-virus (AV) software that showed a backlash against the self-imposed marketing restrictions attempted to be instituted by the independent AV watchdog group.

The specific marketing restriction, the controversial ACR-004, includes the language “You must not charge the consumer to fix free scan results if you are offering an ongoing service,” which effectively provides a death sentence to independent software publishers using a standard sales model that has been widely employed since the 1990s. Many of the complaints against AppEsteem were detailed in a May 2018 report published by the Clean Software Alliance.

I had the opportunity to speak with AppEsteem CEO Dennis Batchelder and ask him directly about the AV software industry, AppEsteem Certification and its controversial “Deceptor Program,” as well as any role government may play in the execution of the AppEsteem model.

When asked to explain why exactly Certification through AppEsteem by AV publishers is a good thing for consumers, Mr. Batchelder stated, “We have 125 ACR’s or “Application Certification Requirements” that are fine tuned to protect consumers. Getting certified means that you met all 125 of them. They (All Current ACR’s) are all available online for you to look up.

“But essentially, you do have rules that state that you can’t scare consumers into buying something. You can’t trick them. You can’t install extra software. You can’t lie when you’re advertising. When you uninstall, you have to uninstall everything. You can’t change the search without getting permission, things like that. So those protect consumers from the predatory behaviors of a lot the applications in the software monetization space and gives them more freedom and reduces their fear of downloading software.”

Regarding the criticisms made against AppEsteem’s “Certification” and “Deceptor” programs as arbitrary and inconsistent, Mr. Batchelder offered, “I think the first thing I would say is we work with the various AV and platform companies to come up with these ACR’s, and they are basically a reflection of their policies.

“When we certify an app as being clean, we’re basically saying we’ve worked with the AV to figure out what their policies are and worked with Microsoft and Google and what you’re left with is, if you’ve met the criteria for certification, you won’t be detected by the AV’s as potentially unwanted software (PUP). We don’t write our own policies, we reflect the policies that we find have been written by the various AVs and security companies.”

There have been many complaints in the industry from companies that feel “blindsided” by AppEsteem’s new requirements. When pressed on this, Mr. Batchelder said, “We try and get the message out about what our program is. We work closely with cleanapps.org which is a non-profit organization representing independent software vendors.

“We’ve also worked with the Clean Software Alliance and have presented at their conferences and we’ve presented at the Google Clean Software Summit in an effort to get the word out so if they’re blindsided it’s possible that they are just not part of the community of (software) monetizers, but I’m pretty sure we’re pretty well known.

“We did a study and this info is on our website, where we compared what happens when we inform the app vendors that they’re going to be listed as a deceptor versus AppEsteem just listing them and what happens is, when we list them 5 percent of them don’t fix the issue and the other 95 percent either fixed the issue or stopped producing the app. When we just informed the vendor and asked them to change and we don’t list the app as a deceptor, 42 percent of them stay active as ’deceptors,’ actively fooling consumers.”

I then proceeded to ask Mr. Batchelder in very clear terms if he could cite any current legislation that supports the criteria AppEsteem has laid out and is attempting to enforce against software publishers to which he plainly answered, “No, and I don’t want to either. The point is the software monetization industry has been hijacked by unethical vendors, that use different methods of arbitress to totally screw consumers.”

Some will call Dennis Batchelder a crusader for consumer protection. Others may think of him as a busy-bodied free-market obstructionist, running a for-profit and pay-for-play inclusion racket for one of the most lucrative sectors of the software industry.

Although there are some who may appreciate the “protections” provided by AppEsteem’s “policing” of the AV software industry, the Clean Software Alliance’s report from earlier this year shows that the support is clearly not unanimous. Time will tell whether AppEsteem truly accomplishes it’s mission statement.

• Julio Rivera, editorial director at ReactionaryTimes.com, is a small-business consultant based in New York City.