PAD® Certification
Why the PAD® Platform Requires Certification?
- Eliminate Fraud and Secure the Publishers Content – As much as 70% of the NEW software applications submitted to web software portals, are fraudulent or illegal digital content. The rise of offshore software publishers are from third-world and developing countries, who publish software with little understanding for international trademark and copyright law.
- Eliminate PAD Spam – Similar to fraud, too many illicit third parties attempt to use the PAD platform to submit their products to PAD sites, hoping they automatically generate product listings that may benefit their SEO or illegal affiliate links. This has several negative consequences, including directly impacting software publishers of legitimate software applications while increasing time and costs to review PAD submissions.
- Provide Security to both Ecommerce Providers and Affiliates – Support the entire ecosystem of app distribution and publishing, making sure that the ecommerce links and solutions included in an application PAD file are legitimate.
- Providing Technical Support for PAD Sites – With over 1000+ third party websites that accept the submissions of PAD files from publishers, the ASP does not have the resources, volunteers or staff to answer questions from these sites. It has also delayed the need for new requested field support in the PAD Specification, as there are no resources available to provide critical support to these sites.
- Provide Tech Support to Publishers – with an estimated 50,000+ publishers who are currently basing their online marketing and distribution of their software products with PAD files, adding certification will allow updates and expansion of the PAD specification for the entire publisher community. Critical and premium support can be delivered through annual certification fees.
- Add New Software Categories to PAD Specification – Neither mobile or web-based apps are supported in the original PAD Specification. With plans to include both with new PAD fields to support these categories, thousands of new publishers will be introduced to the PAD platform, requiring support. The costs of adding these categories to include technical and online support can only be met with annual premium certification.
- Enable New Fields and Features to Existing PAD Specification – Freeware will be replaced by three new freeware categories, potentially affecting nearly 50% of all downloadable software. Addition of social networking, video and other rich media content will also require major engineering with the official ASP PAD client, specification and validation tools. Certification fees will offset the costs to update these tools.
- Enhance the PAD Repository to Provide New Capabilities and Support – utilize the PAD Repository to track, report and access PAD files that legitimately and certified. Enhancements to the PAD Repository include options for using HTTPS secure links, virtual PAD content tracking and support for PAD Extensions.
- Improve PAD Authoring and Validation Tools – This includes the licensing to legitimate third-party tool and service providers, who use the PAD platform without authorization from the ASP. With expanded support for new categories and fields that will be introduced to the specification, the PAD authoring platform will also have to be enhanced and updated. A major goal is to migrate the existing desktop PAD authoring tools to one single web portal tool, that will reduce costs and enhance capabilities to publishers and pad supported sites. This includes improved integration with the current ASP PAD Validation tools and vastly improved Quality Assurance support for PAD submission websites.
- Prevent Software Publishers from False Claims of ASP Membership – this includes real time QA on validating whether publishers are members of the ASP; if the PAD-supported download sites are licensees of the PADKIT and are not only supporting the latest PAD Specification, but are committed to supporting the latest PAD Specification.
PAD®, PADGen, and PADKit are trademarks of the Association of Shareware Professionals in the United States and/or other countries. Please refer to “PAD Rights, Requirements, and Usage Guidelines” on the ASP PAD website. All contents are Copyright ©2013 by AppVisor.com. Parts Association of Software Professionals All Rights Reserved.