All -- we respect your feedback and are responding. We are releasing an emergency update which will make Airpush ads OPT-IN by the users. Users will be prompted upon install if they want to support the developer by allowing 1 ad/day in their tray.

With this change, as a user would you find Airpush as an acceptable monetization option for the developer? This makes it purely a user's choice.

Please note we have already offered a "Permissions API" which many developers are using to create their own opt-in and opt-out procedures, but we are now taking the additional step of FORCING it in our SDK.

Comments are much appreciated.

No. Ads in the notification area are unacceptable noise -- an abuse of the system. I would uninstall any app that did it, tell anyone who would listen to install it and probably scream at my phone for a while if an app started doing it.

So because you wouldn't OPT-IN to receive the ads, you think it's fair not to allow others to opt-in?

We believe that with a solid opt-in in place, users should be able to support the developer by receiving Airpush ads.

Our mistake was we gave full control to the developers to build custom opt-in and opt-out using our Permissions API, whereas going forward we will FORCE a standardized opt-in dialog box.

If I never saw a notification-bar ad, I would not have a problem. The first time though -- the app gets uninstalled and gets a bad review.

with any luck, and it's looking very likely, your "mistake" is going to cost you your business

you've already enraged the community who builds apps, so your forthcoming ban from the marketplace might not even be necessary

i'm personally hoping Google takes a section from the ToS you've undoubtedly breached and sues you into oblivion

So, basically now your business model relies on on users blindly clicking OK to everything when installing/firstrun of an app? Just like they've been conditioned to do from years of desktop software? Not much of an improvement.

Does this end up being one per day per device, or one per day per application?

As an aside, I installed the test application on the marketplace to experience my default notification sound at the same time as the alert was pushed. Cluttering my notification tray is one (undesired) thing, but the sound just pushed it over the top. Is that the behavior the ads will take as well?

I respect trying to push monetization of free apps in a new direction, but I also consider my notification bar to be sacred. Even one additional useless (to me) notification means I trust the rest of them just a little bit less. With moving toward Priority Inbox for gmail, and turning off most other notifications, I would be quite disappointed to realize an application I installed was cluttering it with ads.

It's one per day per DEVICE. As stated we are moving to 100% opt-in. As a result, you will be able to block Airpush ads if you detest them so much, while other users can elect to keep them to help support the developer.

Can't we agree that user choice is the best option here? Or would you only be happy if the entire concept was eradicated? The latter doesn't make sense to me.

It's an abuse of the notifications system. So, I'm definitely in the "eradication" camp.

Sometime, even user choice is not acceptable because the feature is so obnoxious.

"Check this box to install malware: X"

For me, AirPush is in that category.

Come on asherisaac, be honest and imagine that you leave the company you work for so you can assess its business model more objectively: do you still think it's okay? Honestly?

The support rep has given you wrong informaton. We ask all of our developers to put a notice in the Details page of their app, which APNDroid clearly had posted for all users to see. We also provide an API for developers to build custom opt-in and opt-out for the push notification ads.

Some users give bad ratings to many types of ad units, including rich media ads and full page interstitials. That doesn't mean a developer should avoid them.

Not sufficient. Does the notification showing the ad show which application it's coming from?

As long as you don't implement this, you are being disingenuous.

Not that I really care that much, to be honest: I bet that AirPush will shut down and be completely forgotten in a matter of months.