Oct

12

RIM Releases App World Approval Guidelines

posted by Justin Lisenby at on Oct 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2012 10 12 at 11.56.23 AM RIM Releases App World Approval Guidelines

App World has been around for a while and, until now, there hasn’t been a clear guide for what apps get approved and what apps get rejected. RIM has just released what they are calling the “BlackBerry App World Vetting Criteria” which helps developers know what not to include in their applications if they want App World approval. You can check out the brief criteria explanation past the break or just click the link below to check out the PDF containing the full criteria for apps in App World.

BlackBerry App World™ Vendor Guidelines

RIM recognizes that the contributions of application developers are fundamental to the success of the BlackBerry App World™.
The BlackBerry App World™ will strive to deliver the best application discovery experience of high quality offerings for BlackBerry users while simultaneously providing application developers with significant exposure and placement.

RIM shall use the following guidelines when determining whether or not to accept an application submitted by a developer:

  • Applications must be the property of and/or validly licensed to the vendor and must not violate intellectual property rights and the inclusion of your applications in the BlackBerry App World™ must not violate any agreements to which you are a party or of which you are otherwise aware;
  • Any information shall be true, accurate, current and complete and updated as required. Any information and intellectual property (excluding the applications) that is provided to RIM or its agents as part of or along with an application, including, without limitation, user documentation and marketing materials and trademarks, designs and copyright therein (“Information”), must be the property of and/or validly licensed to the vendor and must not violate intellectual property rights. The inclusion of Information in the BlackBerry App World™ or elsewhere must not violate any agreements to which you are a party or of which you are otherwise aware;
  • Applications must be functionally stable in all material respects on the designated target devices and must not interfere with, degrade or adversely affect any software (including, without limitation, other third party applications), service, system, network or data used by any person including RIM or an Airtime Service Provider or otherwise have a detrimental effect upon RIM and/or its brand, an Airtime Service Provider or any of their respective customers or products or services;
  • The application must alert users to any potential airtime usage charges, if applicable;
  • Applications must not contain or link to any content, or perform any function, that is illegal (e.g. against any criminal, civil or statutory law or regulation), including, without limitation, any libel, obscenity, breach of privacy, infringement or misappropriation of any intellectual property rights and/or other proprietary rights of any third party (including, without limitation, unlawfully circumventing any digital rights management protections), and must not contain or link to any content, or perform any function, that is abusive, belittling, harassing, deceptive, malicious or otherwise inappropriate, or provides for any portion of the suggested retail price to be made available to the end user to risk for possible monetary gain within such application;
  • Applications must be:
    • commercially available;
    • designed for installation by end users without further substantial support;
    • provided to RIM in object code format only; and
    • designed for general end user usage and not designed, developed, customized or modified for a specific customer or end user. Cryptographic functionality in Applications must be limited to the following: authentication, digital signature, or copyright protection. Authentication is defined as access control where there is no encryption of files or text except as directly related to the protection of passwords, Personal Identification Numbers(PINs) or similar data to prevent unauthorized access. If any cryptographic functionality is contained in any application, such cryptographic functionality cannot be easily changed by the end user;
  • Vendor must:
    • have obtained all necessary permits, licenses, registrations, authorizations, approvals and declarations (including all necessary export permits) for the distribution of the applications and Information to RIM and on or through the BlackBerry App World™; and
    • provide RIM with any and all information requested by RIM so that RIM may obtain any necessary permits, licenses, registrations, authorizations, approvals and declarations (including all necessary export permits) to distribute the applications through BlackBerry App World™;
  • Applications must be submitted in COD/BAR file format generated using RIM’s BlackBerry Java Development Environment (JDE) and/or RIM’s JDE Plug-in for Eclipse, and be subject to an agreement relating to the use of those development tools (“BlackBerry SDK Agreement”) between RIM and the vendor (or where the vendor is not the original developer of the application, between RIM and the developer);
  • Applications and Information must not violate any terms or conditions of the BlackBerry SDK Agreement or any other agreements applicable to the applications or Information. The current version of the BlackBerry SDK Agreement can be found here:http://www.blackberry.com/legal;
  • The foregoing points are guidelines only, and RIM reserves the right to accept, deny or remove any application from the BlackBerry App World™ at any time.

Please note that notwithstanding preliminary or final acceptance of an application by RIM for inclusion within the BlackBerry App World™, such application may not be made available in all territories and/or to customers of all airtime service providers due to applicable laws in a specific territory and/or restrictions, including, without limitation, service terms, imposed by the applicable airtime service provider on availability of applications on its network.

Please check back often as updated guidelines may be posted by RIM from time to time.

For further details on the application vetting criteria used to approve applications, please refer to the BlackBerry App World™ Vetting Criteria.

 

Justin RIM Releases App World Approval Guidelines
Justin Lisenby started out writing for TheBerryFix back in 2009. He was already an avid BlackBerry fan and his knowledge only grew as he started writing for the site. He moved up quickly in both BlackBerry knowledge and editorial prowess, and quickly moved up to Senior Editor. In 2012, Justin was elevated to Editor-In-Chief of TheBerryFix and he now runs the operations, while still writing and editing for the site.
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