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Facebook Messenger Chatbot for personal fan page
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I created a chatbot using Dialogflow, I submitted it for review and the problem is: I dont have a business (just a page in facebook) for the "Business Verification" so no:
Business license (preferred)
Certificate of formation
Articles of incorporation document
Business utility or phone bill
Please, what is the solution for my case ?
Thank you!
As facebook is fighting to gain their image back after being involved in some major data breaches recently, they are asking Chatbot developers to connect their Bots to real businesses.
The business verification process will take time from weeks to months, requiring appropriated documents proving the page business is real!
I see, therefore, there's no chance to publish your bot now, or even in the future, without having any serious business for the page!
Thankfully, for people like you and me they are currently rolling out "Individual Verification":
If you submit your app for review and you are asked to complete business verification, but you don't own or run a business, you may be given the option to complete individual verification instead. By completing individual verification, you can gain full or limited access to the products listed below. [...]
Related
We use the Facebook API in our web app to provide a "publish to Facebook group" feature directly from the web app. Customers can publish the results they are achieving thanks to our products in our group.
To implement this very simple feature we had to duck, provide screen recordings, send business registration papers, give login credentials, describe the process from every perspective, crawl and bent.
Then
on Dec 15, we received the following message:
"We’re now requiring an admin of your business, [....], to complete access verification. This is a new process that asks for information about how you use the Meta business assets and information of your clients, so we can verify that your business is a Tech Provider."
Also in the same message:
"This typically takes around 10 minutes to complete and you’ll only need to do this once."
Since then I filled in the form 9 times, with serious effort. But every 5 days it just get rejected without a clear reason given, and there is no chance to contact a Facebook support.
Does anyone know how to fill in the "Access Verification - prove you are a Tech Provider form", so I will get accepted?
The actual questions that they keep asking are:
Add details about how your business will use Platform Data (i.e., any info or data you obtain from us) to enable a product or service on behalf of your clients.
Describe how your clients use your product or service.
I already tried the solution proposed here:
Stuck in Facebooks Access Verification hell
quoting their questions, but it has been in vain...
The time is running out, in some days Facebook is going to block the API if we don't pass this verification process, but I don't know what else we can try...
I tried to contact Facebook, but this seems to be impossible. Some forms (App Review Support) just give a generic error message.
I tried to post a request of help to the Facebook Developer Group, but they rejected the request because it's not related to a development issue.
Same when I tried to open a ticket with the Facebook tech support for a bug; they answered that it's not a technical issue.
There is no guide from Facebook on how they want this information to be provided.
We have a booking system that has an online booking aspect. We have been trying for about 2 years now to get facebook to respond to our request for access to their 'book now' list of supported apps and have our product listed.
Not a single response. Multiple applications. There is no support or ability to request if it's been looked at.
We see there are some apps in there, but we can see threads in the facebook support forums that many others are facing the same issue, yet FB closes the threads as solved, even though they're not.
How can we possibly get FB to start the process of allowing our developers to write for the Book Now button and have them actually respond / allow us?
The specific question is, if you've had success, what exact steps did you take? For us, nothing seems to work and 2 years later, our clients are not happy.
Thank you.
I want to add, we have a test app, it's of the type business, we are a confirmed business, it's all done, but we can't add Step 3 from here https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-business-extension/fbe/guides/developer-panel as it's just not in the list, despite all the above being complete.
I was asked by facebook to submit my app for an app review to get further access to some fields in their Graph API. I have done so and today I got a message from them:
The permissions and features review for (my app name) is complete.
Next, we'll verify your business. To do this, you may need to provide
documentation like a business license or utility bill.
The problem is that I have no company and therefore no documents to prove that I have one. I have created and launched this app as an individual and I just want access to few fields from their Graph API.
Please what should I do? I wanted to write them directly, but I haven't found something through what I can contact them.
New limitations
This is the new Facebook's policy. It looks like access to for example user_friends will be now limited to companies which can afford to implement advanced security systems.
Their requirements seem to be similar to the new European regulation - GPDR. These breaking changes are most likely caused by recent lawsuit related with Facebook & Cambridge Analytica and Mark Zuckerberg's promises during his testimony in Congress.
Facebook requires now to verify your business for some permissions:
If you don't pass app or business review, you will loose access to these APIs after August 1, 2018.
Influence on mobile applications
It's a really bad news for small applications, most likely it will kill Facebook integration.
They don't even provide any form to contact and discuss it, when you click on "support" you are forwarded to support page for Facebook Analytics.
If you have a small company and creating apps for fun, their terms are very demanding and could cause a huge problems for your business in the future. Therefore you should decide if it's worth to risk in exchange of displaying friends.
Interesting things about their requirements
When you start business verification process, it asks about company details, if you provide these, you will be asked to sign a contract with Facebook. I encourage to read carefully their terms, because they ask you to:
provide them from time to time upon a written request access to your books, records, agreements, services, facilities etc. which relate to user data in order to audit your security mechanisms and procedures,
cover review costs and expenses if they detect any noncompliance with their terms or security requirements.
Good luck to small apps...
References
Facebook Login Changelog - here you can check which permission requires app review, business verification and contract,
contract with Facebook is not published, you will receive it when you start a business verification,
short overview of Mark Zuckerberg's promises,
post on my blog with this answer,
from Facebook Login Changelog:
In order to help protect people's data, we're now requiring that an increased number of permissions go through the App Review process. For certain permissions, we are also requiring business verification and a contract between your business and Facebook. Businesses can be verified by providing forms of documentation including utility bills, business licenses, certificates of formation, articles of incorporation, tax ID numbers, and others. The contract introduces additional security requirements and other provisions around data.
August 6, 2019 - Update
Finally, the time has come. Permissions were supposed to stop working on August 1, 2018, but actually Facebook has given one extra year. Yesterday I received this e-mail:
As of September 4, 2019, MY_APP_NAME will no longer have access to the
following permissions or features:
user_friends
I was asked by facebook to submit my app for an app review to get further access to some fields in their Graph API. I have done so and today I got a message from them:
The permissions and features review for (my app name) is complete.
Next, we'll verify your business. To do this, you may need to provide
documentation like a business license or utility bill.
The problem is that I have no company and therefore no documents to prove that I have one. I have created and launched this app as an individual and I just want access to few fields from their Graph API.
Please what should I do? I wanted to write them directly, but I haven't found something through what I can contact them.
New limitations
This is the new Facebook's policy. It looks like access to for example user_friends will be now limited to companies which can afford to implement advanced security systems.
Their requirements seem to be similar to the new European regulation - GPDR. These breaking changes are most likely caused by recent lawsuit related with Facebook & Cambridge Analytica and Mark Zuckerberg's promises during his testimony in Congress.
Facebook requires now to verify your business for some permissions:
If you don't pass app or business review, you will loose access to these APIs after August 1, 2018.
Influence on mobile applications
It's a really bad news for small applications, most likely it will kill Facebook integration.
They don't even provide any form to contact and discuss it, when you click on "support" you are forwarded to support page for Facebook Analytics.
If you have a small company and creating apps for fun, their terms are very demanding and could cause a huge problems for your business in the future. Therefore you should decide if it's worth to risk in exchange of displaying friends.
Interesting things about their requirements
When you start business verification process, it asks about company details, if you provide these, you will be asked to sign a contract with Facebook. I encourage to read carefully their terms, because they ask you to:
provide them from time to time upon a written request access to your books, records, agreements, services, facilities etc. which relate to user data in order to audit your security mechanisms and procedures,
cover review costs and expenses if they detect any noncompliance with their terms or security requirements.
Good luck to small apps...
References
Facebook Login Changelog - here you can check which permission requires app review, business verification and contract,
contract with Facebook is not published, you will receive it when you start a business verification,
short overview of Mark Zuckerberg's promises,
post on my blog with this answer,
from Facebook Login Changelog:
In order to help protect people's data, we're now requiring that an increased number of permissions go through the App Review process. For certain permissions, we are also requiring business verification and a contract between your business and Facebook. Businesses can be verified by providing forms of documentation including utility bills, business licenses, certificates of formation, articles of incorporation, tax ID numbers, and others. The contract introduces additional security requirements and other provisions around data.
August 6, 2019 - Update
Finally, the time has come. Permissions were supposed to stop working on August 1, 2018, but actually Facebook has given one extra year. Yesterday I received this e-mail:
As of September 4, 2019, MY_APP_NAME will no longer have access to the
following permissions or features:
user_friends
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I've just received an email from apple saying that the app I submitted to the App Store a week ago has been rejected. The text of the email is reprinted below:
Thank you for submitting iDealwine App to the App Store.
We've completed the review of your app, however, we cannot post this version to the App Store because it requires customers to register with personal information without providing account-based features. Applications cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app features and content; such user registration must be optional and tied to account-based functionality, as required by the App Store Review Guidelines https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html:
17.2 Apps that require users to share personal information, such as email address and date of birth, in order to function will be rejected
Additionally, we need additional information about your app and In App Purchase.
Please take some time to review the following questions and provide as detailed information as you can.
-Please provide more information on the length of the Subscription provided by iDealWine App.
-Where is the In App Purchase located?
If you have any questions about this information, or would like to discuss it further, > please feel free to reply to this email.
To appeal this review, please submit a request to the App Review Board at http://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/contact.html.
We look forward to reviewing your revised app.
The first reason is clear enought but I still wonder if just adding an alternative for the user to sign-in using an existing login/password will solve the issue. So there will be login or register alternative.
For the second reason I don't understand why they have rejected the in-app purchase.
There seem to be a few reviewers who won't let anything through if there's even a tiny chance it might not be 'by the book'. What they are saying with the first section is that:
Your app is asking for credentials, and then it is not obvious that you are providing any extra functionality. It'd be like putting in your twitter password to do a google search.
As for their second section - Sounds like they just want a longer description. What does the in app purchase do? Why is the functionality of benefit to the users?
App store reviews can suck, but normally if you just keep hammering away, you can get through.
Good luck,
Zane
To get pass the reviewers, you might want to have your app provide some basic useful functionality even to someone who will not enter any login or ID. For instance, banking apps in the App store provide maps to the nearest bank branch, banks web site, etc., for someone who has no account with which to login on startup and never will.