alt Hacker News> it seems like you really need an LLC with a mail forwarding service and a cheap second phone line just to avoid the App Store sending the whole internet to your personal phone and address
That's an EU thing. If you don't publish in the EU you don't need to dox yourself.
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Why isn’t Apple the business with the contact info? They’re taking 15-30% cut and fully control their software APIs.
Unless I’m mistaken, Steam and GOG games aren’t listing the address of the game developers in the EU, but I admit that I might be mistaken.
It's also in the US. A consumer protection law in California started it around a decade ago and Google applied it to everyone instead of letting us opt out of the state (it's why I let my Android app die), and since then they've also disallowed PO boxes.
It's also a very general European mindset thing. They have a very different approach to privacy there - they basically expect everyone's identity to be public, and then protect those identities from abuse, rather than the more US approach of letting you hide your identity so it can't be abused. You see supermarkets with the owner's full name plastered across the storefront underneath the franchise logo. "This store is EDEKA John Smith"