I received my number within a week for free without hassle, but I applied some years ago. After that, I received continued phone calls on the registered phone number from companies claiming to have some association with DUNS.
This continued to the point that we actually changed the company phone number to avoid these people. We left the old number working for a while, and the only calls were DUNS spam.
After we dropped the old number we found only one disadvantage to having our DUNS contact details being out of date. When we applied for one of the more verified SSL certificate packages available, the company phoned the number on the DUNS database to verify.
But that could be worked around, and a bit of hassle there was far outweighed by the advantage of stopping the spam calls.
So linkbait headline? No, I would agree from several years of having been on their database.
Registering a business name seems to have much the same effect, so I'm not sure it's merely DUNS.
Similarly my wife at some point had to register some kind of entity to get reimbursed for speaking at a conference and immediately unleashed a torrent of spam. (Correction — my wife's torrent of spam was from DUNS :-)). But hey, mine was just a normal business name registration, and i got the same result.
The US is plagued with cold-calling spammers — just part of the American Experience.
If it is against the law but nobody enforces the law then it is a meaningless law.
In the UK they rarely enforce it but often enough so companies think twice. They also tell the telephone networks hosting the spam callers to kick them off.
The wider problem with the DUNS number, especially as far as its use within government, is that it is a proprietary identifier, which makes it unsuitable for use in a public domain context, especially as far as combining with other data (e.g. combining data from different federal agencies) or in an open data context. Having said that the UK government is now using it in procurement just as the US government is now starting to understand the underlying problems and having second thoughts about its use. See http://blog.opencorporates.com/2012/07/24/are-duns-numbers-t... for more details
I hate linkbait headlines like this because DUNS is not a scam:
It's a useful tool used in the real world of business. Need to see how long a company typically takes to pay? You use DUNS. Want to get and Federal work? You have to have a DUNS before you can register (in addition to your IRS paperwork).
Of course I get the idea that if you're a lone coder how that can be a pain. I also get that if you aren't in the US that it might not make any sense. However that's no reason to call it a scam.
D&B makes money selling their rating information, but while a DUNS number is free, you have to pay to manage your rating. I can't recall the exact wording but the salesman's phone pitch bordered on "Nice little business you got there. It'd be a shame if anything happened to your DUNS rating."
"while a DUNS number is free, you have to pay to manage your rating"
Sounds like they're going with the Better Business Bureau's model, only with less consumer pretense that they're a legitimate governmental agency with the power to do anything and less charitable "we're a volunteer-staffed agency and thus neutral" airs.
Scam might be too harsh a word, but it is more than just a pain.
They have a pattern of shady business practices, including bullying customers into paying more for a service that they have a federally-granted monopoly on. They are abusing their position as a DUNS provider to make profit off of uninformed small businesses. That's what earns them the title of a scam. DUNS may very well be a useful service, but if it's managed by a scamming company, then the usefulness of the service erodes.
It's not a scam but they do call and pressure you to buy their costly advanced listing. I once got into a surprising argument with a phone rep as he practically refused to take no for an answer. I had only registered to bid on govt contracts. Left a very bad taste in my mouth for their services.
Same here. They do a good "Nice little business you've got there, but it's getting a lot of reports" act. Easy to resist when my business hadn't engaged in any activity at all in the couple of months since I'd registered for the number.
One probably wouldn't think the "Better Business Bureau" (BBB) is a scam, either. But the BBB is known for shaking down businesses and having them pay up to obtain a good rating. As is Yelp.
I think the real problem here is trusting ratings organizations to objectively "rate" companies when they have an incentive to extract money from those companies.
These days I think the majority of these claims refer to separate "social media experts" who claim to be able to adjust "yelp reputation" and imply that they have an in, but do not work for Yelp or have any connections, just sockpuppet accounts.
"It's a useful tool used in the real world of business."
Tool? It does not sound like a tool, at least not based on your description:
"Need to see how long a company typically takes to pay?"
...sounds kind of like a credit rating service...
"Want to get and Federal work?"
...sounds like bureaucracy.
It sounds to me like DUNS is a service, not a "tool," and that they are the sort of service that slows everyone and everything down. It should come as no surprise that it is a pain for lone coders: it was designed for expansive bureaucracies, and it has the effect of further expanding those bureaucracies.
I have to wonder what it is that Apple hopes to gain by using this system. Why do they even bother to uniquely identify app developers? Why not just issue a signing key every time someone pays their fee? It sounds like DUNS is just another way for Apple to exclude small operations and focus on the large operations that make most of the popular apps in their app store.
I have no experience with DUNS so I can't say whether or not I agree it's a scam, but I can say that this article didn't make the case for me that it is. The article mentioned the process for requesting a DUNS number being annoying, and taking a while, but made no compelling argument that there's anything scammy about it.
It may just be an indication that the the system is being used for things that it was never intended for. Maybe for the original uses, a 30-day lead time wasn't such a big deal, e.g. "when doing business with the government" over many years.
Well the system is designed to facilitate long distance and international trade (with a DUNS number you can look-up how long a business has existed and their payment history) even if you're in Pakistan and they're in Argentina. Since companies dealing in physical goods take much longer than 30 days to set-up anyway the process hasn't traditionally been a constraint. All that "unneccesary information" is very relevant for a textile shipper even if it isn't for someone selling a crossword app.
For India, they don't even have any option of getting it free. You have to pay a minimum 7500 Rs (~ $ 150) + taxes. Though after payment they gave it in 4 days.
This is a sear monopolistic policy, why should I pay fucking 150$ to any agency for just getting a DUNS number. On top of that, there is this annoying wait period and delays.
Not wanting to defend DUNS but what's the process for getting Indian government contracts? In Australia there were voodoo lists of approved contractors, and I have no idea how one got onto them, how long it took, or how much it cost.
I think this is very good news: it could mean that Apple ran out of ways to torment developers and brought in a third party to fill the gap. Personally I would have opted for forcing new developers to cross-validate each other's documentation after translating it into Esperanto.
"As a startup, you probably don’t have a DUNS number, since they are primarily used when doing business with the government."
Flat out wrong.
DUNS numbers are not a scam. I've had them at past companies and my fathers company had one many many years ago. And I've used them to check credit on companies that I've dealt with. Has nothing to do with the goverment.
I registered for a DUNS number circa 2003 at no cost, and also experienced high-pressure sales calls/emails regarding upgraded credit monitoring services. One sales rep even mentioned 9/11 as a reason that I should care about my business's credit rating. That's pretty scammy as well as pretty stupid. If you actually want to do business with the government, then you'll also have to register your new DUNS number with the CCR, and ORCA, which are much more time-consuming processes, but not at all scammy.
in several (european?) countries, incorporated businesses automatically are assigned a DUNS number by D&B. head to http://www.upik.de/en/upik_suche.cgi and search for your company before requesting a number. surely enough, all of my companies already had one, even the one incorporated two weeks ago.
Great tip. I couldn't find it through D&B's own website (the search result found our companies but only tried to sell me shit), but apparently we have DUNS numbers without ever applying for it.
You could probably submit a request under the Data Protection Act to force them to reveal it anyway, so it makes sense for them to just have a web form...
at what point do people decide that the apple app store is not worth developing for? the early gold-rush days have passed, so there's not even the lure of making loads of money from a minimum-effort app, and from what i hear the store is now so crowded, and the search and sort tools so bad that even getting your app noticed is a struggle - so why continue to deal with apple's abusive hoops and requirements?
For Apple's App Store to become less appealing, you'd need at least a couple of the following to happen:
* Android App Store/Google Play becomes a viable business proposition
* Windows App Store becomes a viable business proposition
* Blackberry App Store becomes a viable business proposition
* The demographics of Apple device owners shift away from the current favorable, affluent, app-buying profile
* The app screening process gets easier, such that malware and other liability-causing software infests it the way that Google Play is infested (and remember, Apple and Disney are longtime buddies and Apple is working a lot harder for media companies' cooperation than Google is)
* The developer program entry barriers become something that bother serious coders already invested in the Apple ecosystem, as opposed to random grumpy developers on the Internet (it is rarely a good business move to treasure the opinion of people who aren't your customers and don't intend to become customers)
good points, especially the last one. i guess if you're already invested in the apple ecosystem ios development seems like a natural extension to mobile.
i was surprised to see you list the screening process as a plus though - that alone would be enough to make sure i never go anywhere near apple mobile dev. i can sees users being (justifiably!) nervous about malware, but as a developer the process looks onerous and capricious. (though again i suppose i mostly hear about it from disgruntled people)
The app screening and approval process has problems, sure, but they're dwarfed by the upside. Users think nothing of downloading and installing a new app on their iThing, and when they don't want they app, they delete it and it's gone for real. Contrast this to the Windows desktop that formed a lot of people's learning experiences, where a new app can fuck things up tremendously and where it's gratuitously hard to make sure that something is gone for real.
That trust that users have in the app ecosystem is, from Apple's point of view, a tremendously valuable asset, and so they are taking logical steps to preserve it. If they lose it, people stop buying apps, the virtuous circle goes to pot, and Apple is in deep trouble. Sure, being assholes about the app approval process has costs, and it's really annoying from the developer side - but from Apple's point of view, the cost of not being hardasses about the approval process, is absolutely ruinous.
We need it in Singapore, and we don't have the option to get it for free, we had to paid around 30 USD for it. And it took weeks to sync with Apple database.
When I applied for a number under the 'free' option, D&B said they would to contact the company. However, they would never leave a voicemail - the 'accounting' IVR option goes straight VM because it's not a full time position.
When I called them I was told I need some ~$700/yr service if I wanted to initiate the process on that phone call (though it was strongly recommend that I go with $1500/yr option).
Some time later, using their business search function, I found that they had issued a number for my company.
Actually, the info is already public, they just offer some sort of web service. They do have competitors: PwC, S&P, BBB, Moody's but they do not offer the 'registration' service alone, they want to rate the company which is somewhat expensive.
Well DUNS isn't exactly a scam, it does help identify the uniqueness and the validity of a business. But...
1) It's painful to use (horrible navigation) and they constantly try to up-sell you (thus the horrible navigation).
2) If you need to correct information on your DUNS account it takes forever.
This is what happened to me while getting my Apple Developer Account. There are multiple departments at D&B , ones that can only verify domains, or others that look up your business information. They coordinate very poorly. For whatever reason they already had my business, but old information and the incorrect domain. It ended up taking 3 tries and six weeks for D&B to update my information.
I own a Canadian corporation and had zero problems getting a DUNS number, once I figured out what it is. It was free and only took a couple of weeks from start to finish.
It wasn't half as annoying as having to snail mail a piece of paper to Apple (Canadian government GST agent form, must be paper).
I don't see how it's any different from all the other hoops I have to jump through to run a business.
While I agree that Dunn & Bradstreet (the issuers of the DUNS number) is a "scam"[1], there are several errors in this article.
The first is, that Apple was getting extreme heat for how long it was taking for them to verify companies. There were many posts from Rogue amoeba, and many linkbait articles complaining about the "App store lottery" and how Apple wouldn't let many people play.
Apple switching to DUNS is clearly an attempt to make this process go more smoothly for everyone.
More importantly, though, because of the potential for liability that Apple has in selling items thru the App Store on behalf of developers, Apple needs to assure, via some "reasonable" process, that they are dealing with real entities.
A business isa fictitious entity, almost by definition, and so to protect itself from knowingly or negligently selling copyrighted material it's not authorized to, it has to authenticate that the businesses it is entering into contracts with are legitimate businesses. IF it does that, then putting warez on the appstore becomes the liability of the business, not apple.
Apple is a huge target and has been harassed by frivolous and obnoxious lawsuits seemingly forever... so it is not unreasonable for them to ensure that their contracts with App developers are legitimate because they are with legitimate entities.
Thirdly, DUNS numbers are not some obscure number used only when doing business with the government.
They are the primary credit reporting agency for businesses in the USA. Most businesses (or at least many) get a DUNS number just in the course of doing business and don't ever have to apply. For instance D&B has a feed of incorporation info from many state's secretaries of state, and as a matter of course, issues DUNS numbers to businesses after they incorporate.
Building credit for a business, because of limited liability laws, is more difficult than individual credit. The fees DUNS charges are usually for their "credit builder" programs, and given the value of the service to a business that needs credit (think your mom & pop flower shop, etc.) they are probably a good deal.
This doesn't exclude shady sales practices or make them right. There's certainly a great deal of reform that the whole credit reporting agency business should go thru...mostly removing government protections of liability for false information, etc.
Consider, though, that it is rather easy in the US to form a business and to dissolve one. Combine that with credit and you risk scammers forming businesses, running up debt and then shutting them down in bankruptcy and making off with the loot.
So, unfortunately, some of the obnoxiousness of D&B comes from their desire to prevent this... but at the same time, their practices are pretty incompetently done (as is the case with all Credit Reporting Agencies) and so what may seem like a scam is often really just poorly implemented policies, with a reasonable motive.
The choice here for Apple is either use DUNS, a third party whom they can effectively offload compliance liability to
[1] As currently set up by the US government, really. The US government passed laws that allow credit reporting agencies to violate privacy in all kinds of ways. This is why DUNS and the other CRAs are such problems for consumers in a huge variety of ways. They are "regulated" such that they are very difficult to hold accountable. The only upside- you get a single free copy of the info they are holding on you, but only once a year. (Which is weak sauce, to say the least.)
This continued to the point that we actually changed the company phone number to avoid these people. We left the old number working for a while, and the only calls were DUNS spam.
After we dropped the old number we found only one disadvantage to having our DUNS contact details being out of date. When we applied for one of the more verified SSL certificate packages available, the company phoned the number on the DUNS database to verify.
But that could be worked around, and a bit of hassle there was far outweighed by the advantage of stopping the spam calls.
So linkbait headline? No, I would agree from several years of having been on their database.