Handango's total disrespect for developers?

[The PocketTV Team]

Since recently, in the Handango purchase confirmation emails that we receive from Handango, we often find customer emails that are syntactically incorrect, e.g. "john_dow@aol" (i.e. domain extension missing).

Has any other developer reveived purchase confirmation emails from Handango that have the same problem?

We notified Handango, but the answer we received from them was (in essence):

Dear Handango developer, who cares, why the f*ck do you need the customer's email. Our Developer's Terms makes it ILLEGAL for you to send ANYTHING to the customer, so if you use the email we provide in any way, we will disable all your products. So who gives a sh*t if the email we send you is syntactically correct or not.

Well, what Handango sent us was in a slightly more polite form, but that's what the message was.

We answered to Handango that in some cases we were sending OUR customers some more information about how to better use OUR product that they purchased, and that we do that to help OUR customer.

But apparently Handango is very upset if a developer sends an email to its customer with infos such as the URL of the product's FAQ and Support forum for the product that they purchased.

Basically Handango considers that people who purchase products through Handango are THEIR customers only, and not OUR customers. So what companies are normally allowed to do with their customers (e.g. contacting them to send them more info about the product they purchased) is explicitely forbidden that the Handango Terms Of Use.

As a developer, what is your opinion on Handango?

Have you ever see such a lack of respect for developers from any other catalog company? (besides pocketland.de)

[rhmorrison]

We notified Handango, but the answer we received from them was (in essence):

Dear Handango developer, who cares, why the f*ck do you need the customer's email. Our Developer's Terms makes it ILLEGAL for you to send ANYTHING to the customer, so if you use the email we provide in any way, we will disable all your products. So who gives a sh*t if the email we send you is not syntactically correct.
Well, what Handango sent us was in a slightly more polite form, but that's what the message was.
Why don't you post the actual excert from the email instead of providing your profanitized version as you understood it?

One of the major problems with interpersonal communication is that sometimes a message is received in a totally different way then how it was transmitted. This could be as simple as the use or non-use of a specific word or phrase or the interpreted 'tone' of the correspondence.

If you want an honest opinion from anyone else then post what was sent!

Have you ever see such a lack of respect for developers from any other catalog company? (besides pocketland.de)
Again I think you are overreacting (otherwise why didn't you post the actual email text)...

1. Marketing. Publisher will bear all expenses for its operation and staff. Publisher will advertise and promote the Software at Publisher's sole discretion and expense.
2. Publisher's Services. Publisher will use reasonable efforts to provide installation assistance, technical training for end users and first level support and maintenance services, which will include resolving problems not primarily caused by the Software's malfunction.
3. Reports. Publisher will use reasonable efforts to provide Software Owner on a monthly basis an Invoice Report that identifies the number of customers who purchased the Software and have submitted payment to Publisher and other information not considered to be personally identifiable (collectively, 'Customer Information'), provided Software Owner is not in breach of any of its obligations. Software Owner shall not use the Customer Information provided by Publisher, including the telephone number, postal address and email address of the customer, to contact the customer, except that Software Owner may use the Customer Information to provide registration or unlock information to the customer to activate and use the Software, unless Publisher indicates to Software Owner that the customer has opted in to be contacted by the Software Owner for other purposes, such as to receive marketing and promotional offers. Software Owner shall not provide the Customer Information to third parties or related parties for purposes of marketing or promotional offers and shall use reasonable effort to ensure that any Customer Information provided to third parties is not used for unsolicited marketing or promotion. Software Owner acknowledges that any unsolicited email contact with a customer may result in a violation of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, codified as 15 U.S.C. 7701 et seq.
4. Returns. Returns from customers will be made in accordance with Publisher?s Return Policy as described on Publisher?s website at www.handango.com, which Return Policy may be updated by Publisher at its sole discretion and at any time.
As they say in the legal business "read it and weep" ...but regardless of what the agreement you entered into with Handango contains if your main purpose is the desire to provide the customer with additional info and help then you should add it to your software, for example in the about box with a link to your web site. Even better implement a "Scan for Updates" function where when a newer version is found takes them to a page with additional info.

"Where there is a will, there is a way."

[The PocketTV Team]

Why don't you post the actual excert from the email instead of providing your profanitized version as you understood it?

all right, here it is:


We pass information along as we receive it, so if the customer only
enters partial info, that is all we have to pass along. Additionally,
you are violating the SDA by contacting customers who have not agreed to
receive contact. The customer can log into their Handango account to
access purchasing information, and their email address is not pertinent
to the fulfillment of their order.

By sending them information upon the purchase, you are violating the
SDA. This is unacceptable. There is a field available when uploading
the application to list a customer support address. If you would like
to give the customers FAQs or tips on how to better use the software,
you may wrap this information in the files delivered to the customer.

If customers need help in redownloading software or obtaining a new
registration key, they may contact Handango, as we provide first-level
customer support.

Based on Section 3c of our SDA, you are in violation by directly
contacting customers. Please cease this immediately in order to prevent
your applications from being deactivated. I've copied this portion of
our agreement for your records below.


Here is the email I wrote to Handango:


I have read very carefully the section of the SDA below, which says:

> Software Owner shall not use the Customer Information provided by
> Publisher, including the
> telephone number, postal address and email address of the customer, to
> contact the customer, except that Software Owner may use the Customer
> Information to provide registration or unlock information to the
> customer to activate and use the Software,

In the email we send upon purchase, we provide just information to USE THE
SOFTWARE, so this is acceptable according to Handango SDA.

> unless Publisher indicates to
> Software Owner that the customer has opted in to be contacted by the
> Software Owner for other purposes, such as to receive marketing and
> promotional offers. Software Owner shall not provide the Customer
> Information to third parties or related parties for purposes of
> marketing or promotional offers and shall use reasonable effort to
> ensure that any Customer Information provided to third parties is not
> used for unsolicited marketing or promotion. Software Owner
> acknowledges that any unsolicited email contact with a customer may
> result in a violation of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, codified as 15 U.S.C.

We don't do ANY of the above, i.e.

- We don't do any marketting or promotion - I'll check that again, to make
sure we don't do that.

- We don't send unsollicited email

- We don't provide email to third parties and related parties for purposes
of marketing or promotional offers

So I really fail to see how providing the user with information on how to
USE THE SOFTWARE is in violation of the Handango terms, since this is
explicitely allowed in the SDA.

If I missed something, please let me know.


Their answer was:

The SDA only indicates that you may "provide registration or unlock
information." It does not permit you to send information regarding the
use the software. For this purpose we offer the help document upload
section of each product account. Please upload any necessary
documentation pertaining to the use of your software in this section by
next Friday, per our other mails today, or your products will be removed
from our distribution network.

Now I agree, after reading the legalese again, that their SDA only allows us to send an activation ley (it does not even allow us to say "thanks!" to the customer)... but do you think what we do is so bad that they would prefer to de-activate our products?

Handango is shooting itself in the foot.

A few weeks ago, Handango decided to stop selling all the software that are using a so-called "author standard" registration model. Some of our best-selling products are using this model, so they de-activated them. We observed that our sales shifted to other catalogs that support our registration model (e.g. Motricity/PocketGear, MobiHand and their partners, including MoDaCo and BrightHand). Not only our sales did not decrease, but in fact our profit increased after handango de-activated our products, because the other catalogs take smaller royalties than Handango (e.g. MobiHand takes only 20% on the MobiHand and MoDaCo sites, while Handango takes about 50%, if you include all their "hidden" charges). So not only Handango has already lost a big share of our revenues - more than 10 grands per year - but they still treat us with little respect, like if they just want us to sell only on their competitors catalog. A weird way to treat their developers, wouldn't you say? Are they forgetting that they would not exists, if it was not for application developers?

if your main purpose is the desire to provide the customer with additional info and help then you should add it to your software, for example in the about box with a link to your web site.

We gave this answer to Handango, since they suggested the same thing:

We provide a Help file (Bundled with our software), but must of the information that we normally send by email is meant to be used of the desktop, not on the device, so it would make no sense to provide this info on the device.

> Again I think you are overreacting (otherwise why didn't you post the actual email text)...

Maybe that's because each time we talk to them, they treat us like that. About each time we had any discussion with them, they threatened to de-activate our products or refused to list them on various of their catalog under various pretexts. Each time we found a bug in their system (and we found several), they initially dismissed it, then after other developers complained, they started looking at it, and in general it takes months if not years before they fix it. The only case where they reacted faster was when msmobiles.com disclosed an enormous security hole in their website that could be used by anyone to get free software.

[rhmorrison]

Maybe that's because each time we talk to them, they treat us like that. About each time we had any discussion with them, they threatened to de-activate our products or refused to list them on various of their catalog under various pretexts. Each time we found a bug in their system (and we found several), they initially dismissed it, then after other developers complained, they started looking at it, and in general it takes months if not years before they fix it. The only case where they reacted faster was when msmobiles.com disclosed an enormous security hole in their website that could be used by anyone to get free software.
Handago is certainly not perfect and I have seen numerous comments as to the high percentage of the purchase price that Handango takes over other services. I doubt if you will change their procedures (or the developer agreement) but you certainly can try. I think that you might have less stress if you just discontinue using Handango and concentrate on the other services that you mentioned such as PocketGear.

As a customer what I personally like about Handango is the device configuration so you 'supposedly' only are shown programs that work with your device, plus they seem to have a large selection of software. I know I have read a lot of other posts from developers complaining about Handango. Maybe you should exchange some emails with Jason Dunn or perhaps better a new topic in the developers section with a poll as regards Handango business practices.

So it's up to you...

If you think that it is still worth having your software in Handango (even with the much higher percentage that they take) then why not add a PC side application/read me that executes when the installer finishes. This way you don't have to break the letter of the Handango agreement and yet the customer will still see the information that you want them to.

In any case, Good Luck with your sales!

[The PocketTV Team]

I doubt if you will change their procedures (or the developer agreement) but you certainly can try.

I tried already in the past. It never works. They would never even listen to what developers have to say, really.

As a customer what I personally like about Handango is the device configuration so you 'supposedly' only are shown programs that work with your device,
MobiHand has is similar but better system. Handango omits or fogets to list many devices, and forces developers to update their product page every week to indicate the new supported devices.

MobiHand only asks developers what feature their application support, and they automatically detect what devices they support, so when a new device comes out, instantly all the supported applications for that devices are listed.

plus they seem to have a large selection of software.

MobiHand and Motricity/PocketGear have similar, if not larger selections.

And if you want to support developers, you should choose to buy with catalog-companies that redistribute a larger part of what you pay to the developers (MobiHand redistributes 80%, Handango only about 50%).

And MobiHand now has many partners, including some quite large ones like BrightHand amd MoDaco.

I know I have read a lot of other posts from developers complaining about Handango. Maybe you should exchange some emails with Jason Dunn or perhaps better a new topic in the developers section with a poll as regards Handango business practices.

So it's up to you...

If you think that it is still worth having your software in Handango (even with the much higher percentage that they take) then why not add a PC side application/read me that executes when the installer finishes. This way you don't have to break the letter of the Handango agreement and yet the customer will still see the information that you want them to.

In any case, Good Luck with your sales!
Yes, I know we are not the only ISV that have problems with the way handango treat ISV.

At that point, interestingly enough it seems that we increased our profits by NOT having our Pocket PC applications on Handango. Once enough developers realize that shifting their sales from Handango to MobiHand and Motricity will increase their gross profits, maybe Handango will start taking action to retain developers, instead of doing about everything they can to make them leave.

I wish this site was partnering with MobiHand rather than with handango for their software sales. But maybe they have a better deal with Handango...but certainely not a better deal as far as ISV are concerned!

[StopHandango]

Trust me, until you have had first hand dealings with Handango you can not imagine how bad they are. They are classic bullies, they are undoubtedly bigger than the other online distributors so they use their size to bully developers into submission. Sometimes they take it too far.

Handango treat the customers ok-ish, although they are now starting to try and control the customers online experience, however they treat all software developers like dogs, no respect what so ever. Handango seem to think they are a publisher, but they are little more than a retailer. There is only so far you can push both developers and customers before it starts to fall to pieces. I have got to the point where I hate getting emails from Handango, they contain nothing but bad news: "our percentage is going up", "change this", "change that", "comply!", very stressful.

I've never understood why Handango think that the customers are just theirs and nothing to do with the developer. The customer has purchased product A developed by CompanyA via Handango, therefore IMO they are also a customer of CompanyA. Basically, what it boils down to is control. Handango are paranoid about developers directly marketing customers and telling them to bypass Handango. A number of the larger mobile software developers have set up their own online stores and taken a lot of business away from Handango, but rather than being competitive and winning customers back Handango have gone for the control angle.

As for Handango's policies, they aren't worth squat. In my experience they update their policies on the fly simply to force developers to "comply" with their wishes. I had clearly followed one of their external URL link policies but they still weren't happy with my linking to my own site so they modified the policy.

Working with Handango is like being in an abusive relationship, you get beaten down until you submit.

I would recommend listing on one of the following online stores: Clickgamer/Clickapps, MobiHand or PocketGear. If you are a start up developer then personally I'd avoid Handango and support a software distributor that will not shaft you. Also, Handango's developer "extranet" (i.e. the developer admin screens) are bug-ridden clunky rubbish. Both Clickgamer and MobiHand have excellent developer admin screens.

[The PocketTV Team]

I completely agree with all you say. You described Handango's relation with developers much better than I could.

We received an email today from Handango telling us that our freeware would be de-activated from the Handango website, because:

1) it requires free registration on our website (apparently this violates Handango's External Link policy)

2) Handango claims that the user could be tempted to purchase the "Pro" version of the freeware directly from our website, even though all the links in the freeware downloaded from Handango point to the Handango website (not to our website) for purchase of the Pro version.

3) Handango is apparently very unhappy that we use the MobiHand basket on our website, rather than the Handango commerce engine.

Here is what we answered to Handango:

This is to confirm that we have de-activated all our PocketTV Classic freeware from the Handango website.

If you later change your policies and decide to take advantage of the extra Handango sales that are brought by distributing our freeware, please let us know.

Once again, Handango is shooting itself in the foot.

Naturally our PocketTV Classic freeware is still widely available on other major sites like PocketGear, MobiHand and all the freeware websites, and of course on our website, and all those version of the freeware encourages users to purchase the Pro version from those other sites, not from Handango.

So I don't see what Handango gains with their policy, except alienating developers and reducing their sales and profits.

[juni]

We would switch to PocketGear but unfortunately (as far as I know) Handango is the only one to pay the developers through paypal. Checks are useless here.

[The PocketTV Team]

We would switch to PocketGear but unfortunately (as far as I know) Handango is the only one to pay the developers through paypal. Checks are useless here.

I don't know about Paypal, but I know Motricity (i.e. PocketGear, Smartphone.net and PalmGear) and MobiHand can pay with direct bank transfer, at least in the US.

[juni]

I assume the bank transfer has a large fee. :(

[The PocketTV Team]

I assume the bank transfer has a large fee. :(
i don't think so, but you should ask them.

i don't think we get charged anything, since bank transfer saves paperwork and other fees to those catalog companies. but they probably wouldn't like to do that for payments of less than $100-200, i suppose.

[The PocketTV Team]

We would switch to PocketGear but unfortunately (as far as I know) Handango is the only one to pay the developers through paypal. Checks are useless here.
Actually MobiHand supports paypal.

[The PocketTV Team]

Wow, I'm surprised (in a good way):

Handango finally acknowledged (yesterday) that they mobile website (for Windows Mobile) is very broken and needs to be fixed!

It only took several years before they looked at it and listen to some developers that complained... but now they will fix it. And maybe some day they will have a mobile store that can be usable, i.e. with a way to browse by categories and sort apps by price, popularity etc in each category. Not the case until now.

Also they finally noticed that when you go to http://www.handango.com/mobile , clicking on "Smartphone" brings you to a Smartphone mobile store, while clicking on "Pocket PC" brings you to their stupid InHand app, rather than to the Pocket PC catalog.

To get to the mobile Pocket PC catalog, you must go to a best-kept secret URL: http://www.handango.com/ppc/

How can all this mess increase their Over-The-Air sales???

[The PocketTV Team]

In the email that Handango sends to developers each time they have a product sale, Handango writes:

In accordance with recently passed laws, the customer information being provided in this sales report is to be used only for the purpose of providing registration keys and customer support*. [...]

*Transactions placed through the Handango Commerce Engine on Software Owner's Web site are not subject to these same terms.

Does anyone know which "recently passed laws" (I assume US laws?) Handango is refering to?

Could someone tell me howcome using the Handango Commerce Engine causes those "recently passed laws" to not apply?

Any Lawyer here?

[protochu]

hmm... That does seem to contradict itself.... :?

I can only assume they are refering to SPAM laws.

Beside, Handango just released the *NEW* Handango. Doesn't seem all that much better, but I am still developing my apps, not selling them, yet.