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I have written an app which notifies users when someone make them unfollow (As like as any other apps in this area). Then, I got my app approved by Instagram. After six/seven attempts, they don't approve the app till now. I followed their instructions as feedback and fixed any probable privacy problem which my app might have. But I didn't get any bright answer from them as far.

I throw my app on the following use case:

My product helps brands and advertisers understand, manage their audience and media rights.

And I wrote my API use cases as follows:

Thank you for considering our request to approve our application. The required information for enabling live mode for our application is explained in the following lines:

Q1: How your app does use the Instagram API?

  1. First of all, our user (i.e. brands or advertisers) selects the “Unfollow Finder Service” on our application.
  2. We redirect the user to Instagram login page, as indicated in API documentation, to authorize his account to accessing required scopes. i. Note that we already told the user everything that we are going to use.
  3. We tend to call follow APIs whenever the authorized user clicks a button in our application.
  4. Ultimately, we inform the authorized user with the information obtained from step 3.

Q2: How does it fall into one of the approved use cases?

The list of users who recently unfollowed/followed an Instagram account are definitely crucial and beneficial for the brands and advertisers on Instagram. In this way, they can get feedback implicitly from their customers. Our service help them to manage their audiences and provide better content for them. So, according to Q1, our use case falls into “My product helps brands and advertisers understand, manage their audience and media rights.” We never violate the approved scopes and Instagram's privacy.

Q3: Who will be using your app?

In our region, lots of brands and businesses utilize Instagram to publish their content. They are the users of our service and can use it to improve their relation with their audiences. Kind regards,

As you see, I'm trying to tell them everything in detail. But in my last submission, they declined me with the following feedback:

General issues:

Policy Violation ("Like", "Follow", "Comment" Exchange Program): Your app shouldn't participate, enable or promote any “like”, “share”, “comment” or “follower” exchange programs. In working to build a high quality platform experience, we ask that you comply with our Platform Policy (http://wwww.instagram.com/about/legal/terms/api/).

I just want permission on follower_list scope from them. The surprising part is that they noted me with almost irrelevant feedback. It seems that they do not want to approve my app at all.

Do I violate their privacy? Does anyone face this problem? How can I fix it and had my app approved?

Sorry for asking this question here since I almost googled entire web (+Stackoverflow) and find no helpful answer. All of my previous attempts were gone away.

Thanks in advance.

inverted_index
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  • The message is clear, that you cannot participate into the users followers! From the first time your app got approved, and the time it got rejected probably there could be changes to your app or their policy. – Smit Mar 01 '17 at 12:03
  • But see, there are hundreds of apps that give you your unfollow list! So the main question is: "How do they make their app approved?!" @Smit – inverted_index Mar 01 '17 at 12:05
  • And if they are not going to allow developers to use their API, why do they give API at all?? @Smit – inverted_index Mar 01 '17 at 12:08
  • There could be that, your app is asking for the permission or implemented something that could violate users followers! Is that something else that you forgot to mention or u did it unintentionally? – Smit Mar 01 '17 at 12:08
  • Agree! But you might be doing more than what u are suppose to do! API is just application programming interface probably used for login and users enchantment policies. – Smit Mar 01 '17 at 12:10
  • Why not clarify with them about this issue? and know more about it? – Smit Mar 01 '17 at 12:10
  • No, it's impossible! I wrote everything as they wanted and am sure that I didn't forget anything... @Smit – inverted_index Mar 01 '17 at 12:11
  • You know after all these attempts, I think they do not even check my last submission... because their last feedback was very very irrelevant. I suppose the requests are checked by a machine or something else... @Smit – inverted_index Mar 01 '17 at 12:14
  • `follower_list` is the permission that seem be reject right? – Smit Mar 01 '17 at 12:26
  • Apparently yes. But they themselves add another scope `base` to my request @Smit – inverted_index Mar 01 '17 at 12:29
  • Hmm, how to you remove the request and then let it get approved. And looks like follower_list is deprecated. – Smit Mar 01 '17 at 12:33
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    You mean that I should resubmit my submission?? I dont think so. If the API got deprecated they close their follow APIs accordingly. @Smit – inverted_index Mar 01 '17 at 12:36
  • Did you get any further? I'm having the same feedback comment here and I'm not even asking for the followers scope - I'm asking for Comment functionality. – Sean H May 26 '17 at 09:58

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