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Apple iAd Drawing Antitrust Scrutiny
snydeq writes "US regulators are planning to investigate whether Apple is shutting out third parties such as Google and Microsoft in advertising on the iPhone and iPad under revised terms to its iAd mobile ad platform. Apple's revised developer terms prohibit ad analytics collection unless it is provided to an independent ad service provider whose primary business is serving mobile ads. If enforced, the proposed terms would prohibit developers from using Google's AdMob service on the iPhone, according to AdMob founder Omar Hamoui. Developers using AdMob to deliver ads on cross-platform mobile apps would have to go through an alternative service for the version of the app running on an Apple platform, according to the terms. It's an impractical solution that some are calling restrictive."
Riding on the Metro (the subway system around the DC/Metro area) a few weekends ago, we noticed something strange outside the windows of the train while going through an underground tunnel: evenly-spaced signs made out of LEDs that, when travel past at speed, created a "flipbook" type of advertisement....for fucking Starbucks.
Yes. It really has come to this.
Living With a Nerd
It's tricky. Once a product/service reaches a point where it's widely used and relied upon by users it potentially becomes a marketplace. The question is should it be considered a part of the rest of the "market" and be regulated as a free market like the rest of our market? How do you define what qualifies to be considered a market that should be free and open? By number of users? Value of potential revenue? Or should it all be free and open? I can't run an Ad network on PS3, Wii, etc. So why is the iPhone singled out?
Great questions. I'm having a hard time deciding how to form an opinion on this issue because I can't seem to come up with the right analogy to map this over to other real-world scenarios with similar questions.
I mean, if you consider Apple a "publisher", in this case a publisher of applications, why can they not control how ads get delivered? If they published books, for example, could they not make publication of an author's book contingent on the author NOT selling advertising space inside it? The author, after all, can self-publish his work and include any content he wants, whether advertisements or something else, so he still has choices. He can also seek out other publishers who might have publication rules that allow him to sell ads within his book.
The creator of an application has many other platforms and devices on which he can publish his application, if he feels that Apple's advertising rules are too restrictive. So he, too, has choices.
If we look at Apple as a merchant rather than a publisher (in this case, a merchant running an App Store,) can we not make comparisons to merchants in brick and mortar stores? Wouldn't a clothing store owner be within her rights to decree that any shirt sold in her store must not advertise competitor's stores? The creator of the shirt can still go to other outlets to sell his shirt, and doesn't the proprietor of a store have a right to control the merchandise sold through that store?
In every analogous situation I can think of, I come down on the side of Apple -- having the right to decree what can and cannot be published/sold through their storefront.
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