British entrepreneur’s ‘robot lawyer’ takes on Apple by challenging app rejections

A British entrepreneur whose “robot lawyer” app is used by thousands of consumers to fight parking tickets and legal battles is taking on Apple with a service to challenge the tech giant when it shuts down apps.

DoNotPay, founded by 23-year-old Joshua Browder and backed by top Silicon Valley investors, is launching the feature after Apple came close to removing the app last week.

On Tuesday, Apple said the DoNotPay app broke the company’s rules and would be removed from the App Store. The ban was quickly reversed, but Mr Browder said the episode motivated him to help other developers challenge the rules. 

Tens of thousands of apps or app updates that are rejected from Apple’s App Store each week, and developers have claimed they find the review process inconsistent.

Mr Browder said the DoNotPay chatbot will automatically generate an appeal with the app review process, giving developers a better chance of successfully appealing when Apple rejects an app.

DoNotPay’s chatbot service, launched five years ago, automatically files government paperwork, fights parking tickets, and handles landlord disputes by entering details of a claim. The app can also claim compensation for spam emails and report fraud.

It has around 100,000 subscribers who pay $3 or £3 a month for the service, and its backers include Coatue, Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund, three major tech investors. It has handled around 1m cases in total.

Mr Browder said Apple had demanded the app use its payment service, from which Apple takes a 30pc commission, for selling subscriptions, before reversing its decision on Tuesday night. Apple’s giant App Store reviews 100,000 new apps or updates a week, and rejects around 40pc of them.

“The app review guidelines are longer than the US Constitution, and DoNotPay is all about beating bureaucracy,” Mr Browder said. He said he would not include the feature in the iPhone app, since Apple’s rules prohibit apps that themselves discuss Apple’s rules, but would add it to DoNotPay’s service in web browsers. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.