To comply with the DSA, Apple deleted 137,000 apps in the EU App Store, on the grounds that they did not indicate all the information required. A measure for more transparency that affects small developers …
Since February 18, 2025, all applications distributed on the European Union App Store must comply with the new Digital Services ACT (DSA) guidelines, which imposes stricter requirements on application suppliers. As a result, each developer offering an app on the App Store must declare their trader status and provide detailed contact details-postal address, telephone number and e-mail address-visible in the application sheet-while Before, a simple email address was enough.
Result of the races: Apple withdrew from the European App Store no less than 137,000 applications which did not meet the new requirements of the DSA, as reported Techcrunch. A hell of a cleaning!
Cleaning the App Store: Apple under pressure from the EU
According to articles 30 and 31 of the DSA, any developer generating income via the App Store-whether paid downloads, in-app purchases or advertisements-is considered a merchant. Only non -profit or personal use applications are not affected by this categorization.
In itself, this measure strengthens the transparency and safety of the mobile application shop, guaranteeing users better knowledge of the entities behind each app that they install. This is however a bad news for small businesses and independent developers, who tend not to publish their addresses or phone numbers to process complaints or requests from consumers, in order to avoid disclosing their contact details Personal – since they work at home – or not to embark on an administrative route strewn with pitfalls. They now provide coworking spaces, virtual offices or postal boxes such as commercial addresses, or subscribe to virtual telephone numbers instead of communicating their private numbers.
The information required by European regulations must appear in other details of the application, such as the age classification and the tightly supported languages, but above the link to the developer’s website.