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Seller Guidelines
Chariz is a respected and trusted name. This helps all sellers on the Chariz Pay platform — users are more confident in making purchases when they trust the merchant, even if they don’t yet know whether to trust the seller. By using Chariz Pay, we expect sellers to follow these rules to maintain the quality and reputation of Chariz, other sellers on the platform, and themselves.
HASHBANG Productions reserves the right to take action, including blocking further purchases and issuing refunds, if we feel that a seller is not adequately following these rules. We will always get in touch with sellers to work out a solution before this happens. If we feel the action is inadequate, or if the seller doesn’t respond in a reasonable timeframe, we will take whatever action we believe is the best solution for affected customers.
HASHBANG Productions may provide a refund to a customer at any time if they contact us requesting one, or file a dispute with their bank or PayPal. An automated email will be sent to a seller when we receive a dispute. If we receive any emails or other messages we believe should be directed to you, we will do our best to ensure it is forwarded to you, or direct the customer to contact you.
We would like to make clear that if your product was already rejected by a competing platform, chances are Chariz may not accept it either. If you believe your product was wrongly rejected, especially if this was due to technical reasons (e.g. disallowed use of APIs), business reasons (e.g. being forced to add/remove features, or change your monetisation model, purely to benefit the platform owner), or other rules you believe are overreaching or were applied unfairly, we would still like to hear from you! However, we need to make clear that many of our rules align with those of other software marketplaces such as the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, because many of those rules make sense regardless of the marketplace or its owner’s business motives.
This is a living document and we may add, modify, or remove rules at any time as Chariz grows and faces different challenges along the way. While we believe it should be extremely unlikely, if there are changes we believe will affect a seller, we will get in touch with them first to discuss their options. If you have questions about these rules, please contact us. For transparency, we provide history of this document.
Terminology
- “We”: HASHBANG Productions, the operators of Chariz.
- “Platform”: Chariz Pay and/or the larger Chariz online service.
- “Product”: A piece of software sold through the Chariz Pay platform.
- “You” or “Seller”: An entity selling on Chariz Pay, whether a business, group of developers, or individual.
- “Customer”: A person who has purchased or otherwise been granted a license to a product.
1. Functionality
- 1.A product may be declined if it appears to mislead, be of dubious benefit, or performs unexpected/malicious actions. We know that you know where the line is between useful functionality and malware — don’t cross it.
- 2.Products that seem to be related to pornography or heavily violent photographic content are not acceptable. User-submitted content fitting these categories is acceptable as long as this is not endorsed by the product or seller, and the product is marked as not for children (see below).
- 3.A product may be declined if it may be illegal in at least one country.
- 4.A product may be declined if it is oriented towards making political statements that may offend users, or unfairly discriminates against groups of users.
- 5.If users are able to submit data within the product, even without creating an account, you must provide a privacy policy and comply with privacy laws in the countries your product is available in.
- 6.You may sell digital and physical goods through your product without having these sales directed through Chariz Pay, but products must be legal to be sold and used in the countries your product is available in.
- 7.Products must not have hidden features (not accessible through an obvious navigation button), unless they are documented or are only fun extras (e.g. a hidden mini-game in an about screen).
- 8.A product may perform integrity checks to detect tampering or piracy, and use the result to display a warning to the user and/or refuse to run, but should not harm the user’s device or data. We believe sellers should be allowed to protect against use of pirated copies, but any further than a gentle warning is likely to be considered malware.
- 9.Products that mine cryptocurrency, even with the user’s permission, are not acceptable. Users see this as malware, especially if this makes the device very warm or activates the fan. Cryptocurrency-related apps are exempted as long as the user earns the majority of the proceeds.
2. Copyright
- 1.Products must not contain copyrighted source code or assets you do not have permission to use.
- 2.Open source software should be licensed under at least one OSI-approved license, and you must follow the license(s). Particularly, if the product intends to generate revenue, the license(s) must not conflict with commercial use.
- 3.Open source software is only permitted to be sold if you are the original author, have permission from the original author, or have forked an abandoned project and made significant changes.
- 4.A product name should not use another company’s name or product name, even if not trademarked. Names of the form “Florp Enhancer” (trademark at the start) are not acceptable as this seems to indicate affiliation with the authors of Florp. Consider a name that indicates your product works with another product, such as “Enhancer for Florp”.
- 5.A product logo should not contain copyrighted content you do not have permission to use, including logos of another company or product.
- 6.Screenshots may not contain copyrighted content you do not have permission to use, unless it is obviously only used for illustration (e.g. album covers in a music app). Prefer libre content as much as possible.
- 7.We do not take copyright ownership of your product – you are only licensing the content to us so we can distribute it on your behalf. However, we expect sellers to understand that selling a product on Chariz as well as a directly competing store is not advised, due to concerns over poor user experience and increased customer support maintenance.
3. Metadata
- 1.A product name, icon, description, and other metadata can not mislead users into believing that a product can do anything more than it is currently capable of.
- 2.A product name should be as concise as possible, ideally not exceeding 30 characters in length, but longer is still acceptable.
- 3.A product’s author name should either be your full name or a recognisable username you use on other websites such as social media, or a recognisable group name with a website and/or social media presence.
- 4.A product description should be easy to understand – consider using Plain English. We may copyedit your description to increase clarity. If this happens, we will contact you about it and allow you to make changes if we made a mistake.
- 5.A product description should be honest about certifications and product ratings it mentions. Provide a link to the source of each certification or review where possible.
- 6.A product that is not intended to be used in certain countries should indicate countries that are or aren’t supported in the description.
- 7.If a product primarily targets non-English-speaking users, the product description should be written in the primary language, and also in English.
- 8.A product that is not suitable for younger age groups, for instance to comply with children’s privacy protection laws, should be indicated as such.
- 9.A products that is considered not yet stable (i.e. “in beta”) should be indicated as such.
- 10.A product’s compatibility fields must be maintained and only represent devices and operating system versions you are certain the product runs on.
- 11.A product’s changelogs must make an effort to explain changes in a way its target demographic will understand. Repeated use of a generic message such as “Bug fixes and performance improvements” is discouraged. Changelogs are publicly visible, so use it as an opportunity to advertise your product’s progress to potential purchasers.
4. Graphics
- 1.A product icon must be provided, and should be in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) form, or PNG of at least 500×500 pixels. SVG is preferred so we can ensure your icon looks best at all resolutions. Most tools such as Sketch, Adobe Photoshop Asset Generator, and Adobe XD are able to export SVG. Text must be converted to shapes to ensure correct rendering.
- 2.Screenshots must reflect a current version of the product, or an older version that is similar enough to the latest version. We encourage you to update your screenshots with each release.
- 3.Graphics around screenshots are acceptable, as long as it is clear that this is not part of the product itself. This includes but is not limited to device frames, text explaining the content of the screenshot, and indicators such as arrows and circles.
- 4.Screenshots are highly recommended to be taken on a high-DPI (Retina Display) device, but low-DPI is acceptable if you don’t have a high-DPI monitor/device.
- 5.Screenshots may be photographic, but device screens in photos must be accurate and not significantly obstructed by objects or reflections. If you place a screenshot over the top of a device screen in post-production, it must be reasonably believable (well-positioned on top of the screen area, including distortion, with no bleed from the original image on the screen from the photo).
- 6.All graphics must be suitable for viewing by all ages and avoid mature content.
5. Customer Relations
- 1.Sellers must provide an email address (and optionally, a live chat or community support channel such as Discord, Twitter, Intercom, or a bulletin board) that is frequently monitored for customer messages (at least once a week). This email address may be used as a traditional email account, or forwarded to a platform such as Zendesk. A form of contact is legally required in some countries.
- 2.Sellers must respond in a timely manner to customer questions (at most 1 week). If the answer will take some time, make the customer aware that you’ll get back to them later. This is not required for discontinued products.
- 3.Sellers must enable an out-of-office reply/vacation mode on their email account when they are taking a short break from answering emails.
- 4.Sellers must have a reasonable refund policy that does not reject change-of-mind refunds. It is important to recognise that customers may find that the product doesn’t suit their needs. Your reputation is more important than retaining a customer against their will.
- 5.Sellers must speak reasonably to customers. Insults, swears, and argument are not acceptable. If a customer is angry, stay calm and professional when responding to them — two wrongs don’t make a right.
- 6.Sellers must not mislead customers about the functionality of their product in advertising, documentation, or other communications inside or outside of the Chariz platform.