Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Nokia Ovi Store removing unwanted comments

Nokia was making a start some months ago to get into the mobile app business with Ovi store, after seeing Apple hitting big numbers of sales through their app store.


I have bought a Nokia N97 myself a month ago as a big Nokia fan I was for many years now. I thought to try the Ovi store myself with downloading some apps and started with Tweets S60 (a twitter client for Symbian phones).

While trying to test this app I found out that it was crashing no matter what I was doing (trying to refresh, trying to tweet, etc.). I thought that this piece of software was fo sure unfinished and should still be a beta, so I thought to post a review in the Ovi store for this app. I have posted the below:
"I was just able to open the app. When updating it crashes, when sending tweet it crashes! Nothing works, even downloading it was a waste of time."

Some days later I got this email from Ovi:
" Dear xxxxxx, We are informing you that we have removed the following comment from your account in Ovi Store: I was just able to open the app. When updating it crashes, when sending tweet it crashes! Nothing works, even downloading it was a waste of time We have removed the comment since it appears to violate the Ovi Store content guidelines. Nokia is committed to providing a safe and fun service for the consumers. Repeated violations of the content guidelines may lead to termination of the account. Please continue to use Ovi Store but please review the Content Guidelines for what is not allowed on the service. Thank you, Ovi Store Moderation Team If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail Object Object> "
I have tried to find the Content Guidelines mentioned in their mail, but was not lucky!
So I thought to reply back to this email, as the link they have provided does not contain any email address.

I wrote the following:
"Dear Ovi Store Moderation Team, I was quite surprised to see that you have removed my below comment from the application. I believe that commenting on applications is used to identify which application people should prefer and which one they should avoid. All comments need to be fair though. This is what I have tried to do with my below comment as well. I have tried to be as fair as I can be, by trying to use this applications, which proved to be unusable (and possibly should still be in beta). If you only prefer the good comments to be appearing in the applications, then your commenting and rating service is biased. Thanks for informing me over this, but because I still prefer to use unbiased comments for deciding which application to download I will continue using the leading app store and stop using Ovi store. Best regards, xxxxxxxx"

Some more days later I found out that actually Ovi store has blocked any replies to their email. I am fairly sure this is because they get a lot of such replies but this is still unacceptable by the leading mobile phone seller.

Ovi Store has proved to be another downturn for Nokia and surely I will never visit it again. Everything is down to the platform though and that's the main reason Nokia has announced the move form Symbian to Maemo in 2012.

3 years is a very long time though and I have made my decision as many hundred of thousands did already. My next mobile will not be Nokia and I'm not sure if I will ever buy another one. Another loyal customer lost...

Please share any such stories you faced...

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