Developer Reports App Store Rejection Due to Analytics Inclusion

Last week, technology news blog VentureBeat caught wind of a story where Apple had rejected an iPhone application because it, according to the email sent to the developer, "is not appropriate for applications to gather user analytics."

Not appropriate, you may ask? Since when?

Apparently since Apple released its updated iPhone Developer Agreement. Alongside the SDK 4 beta, made available shortly after the announcement in early April, the developer contract was updated, too.

Specifically, the clause in question, section 3.3.9, reads, in part (more here):

Notwithstanding anything else in this Agreement, Device Data may not be provided or disclosed to a third party without Apple's prior written consent. Accordingly, the use of third party software in Your Application to collect and send Device Data to a third party for processing or analysis is expressly prohibited.

To date, the changes detailed in this clause have been overshadowed by the one preceding it; in Section 3.3.1, Apple banned the use of cross-compiler tools for building iPhone applications, like the one Adobe was just about to ship, for example.

But in the long run, it's Section 3.3.9 that may have more impact on the industry as a whole.

"FEAR"

You may have not heard too much about this change because no one actually knows what's going on thanks to Apple's par-for-the-course policy of refusing to clarify its meaning. Plus, the companies that may be the most heavily affected by an analytics ban - services like Flurry, MediaLets, Motally and Localytics, to name a few - don't want to talk about it. On record that is.

But after a dozen or so phone calls and emails, we're starting to see a picture forming and it can be summed up in one word: FEAR.

"Nobody wants to be the canary in the coal mine," one source told us, referring to the radio silence we're getting from these companies when you would have otherwise expected to hear outcry, or perhaps even anti-competitive claims. Some companies, off-record, say they are afraid to complain. If they do, they could be the next to be banned.

Another source reported that a number of their company's clients weren't submitting updates to the iTunes Application Store because they were worried that the updates, with the analytics included of course, would be rejected. Instead, the clients are leaving their older applications in place since it doesn't appear that Apple is going back through all the current apps and booting out those that already include analytics within them. "Maybe the older apps are grandfathered in?" they wondered aloud.

The fact that no one knows, not even the big-name, big-box retailer that sits at the top of the latter's client list, is a testament to how Apple likes to do business. Here's the agreement, read it, sign it... and that's the extent of the communication.

As to those who did manage to get someone from Apple to talk about it? The answer was simply: "Read the agreement."

But if Apple holds true to what's written there, it sounds like it could spell doom for mobile analytics and ad firms, especially the small-time players beloved by independent developers.

iAd, Anti-Competitive?

What no one will say - again, on record, that is - is that the changes have a whiff of anti-competitive behavior to them. The issue at hand: Apple is preparing to launch iAd, an advertising platform based on the newly acquired Quattro Wireless technology, a company that was the second choice for Apple after the Admob deal fell through.

"We tried to buy AdMob, but Google snatched them up because they didn't want us to have them," Steve Jobs said during the April keynote. "So we bought another smaller company, Quattro. But we're babes in the woods."

But these "babes" are toting means guns, some say. A couple companies see the language in section 3.3.9 as a direct shot at AdMob in the same way that the changes in 3.3.1 were a shot at Adobe. That is, instead of allowing Google to get its mobile advertisements onto the iPhone, Apple can keep them out via the new analytics and ad ban.

Whether or not that's the case is certainly up for debate. But considering that the Google/AdMob deal is still being researched by U.S. antitrust enforcers, regulators are aware of the issue. Word has it that Google even pointed it out to the FTC, just in case.

Continue Reading: Next page, "A Second Opinion"