Apple has posted a news bulletin for iPhone developers, informing them they may not use the phone’s geolocation features primarily for delivering targeted ads.
What that means is if you’re playing a game that doesn’t use geolocation for gameplay, and all it’s doing is tracking your location to serve location-based ads, it’ll get rejected. (Many media outlets have reported that Apple has banned location-based ads altogether, which is not the case.)
Apple’s news bulletin reads:
The Core Location framework allows you to build applications which know where your users are and can deliver information based on their location, such as local weather, nearby restaurants, ATMs, and other location-based information.
If you build your application with features based on a user’s location, make sure these features provide beneficial information. If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.
Many apps currently serve location-based ads through AdMob, an advertising firm recently acquired by Google. Apple’s new rule implies apps using AdMob ads will get rejected if geolocation is not part of the software’s functionality.
In a statement provided to Wired.com, an Apple spokeswoman said the move was for the benefit of the consumer.
“The Core Location framework allows developers to deliver information to customers based on their location,” an Apple spokeswoman said. “This should be done with the customer’s permission and for a purpose that is directly beneficial to the customer.”
Many, however, have been quick to conclude that the regulation is a move for Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising company Apple purchased in January, to gain a leg up in mobile advertising against Google’s recently acquired mobile ad firm AdMob. It’s conceivable that Apple could indeed be improving the mobile ad experience for customers, the Core Location regulation could also be an effort to deter developers from serving ads with AdMob.
My friend Matt Buchanan of Gizmodo argues, “It’s not to protect you.”
“It’s not too much of a stretch to see Apple’s ad platform in the future being the best way to deliver ads in apps, which might offer perks like, say, location-based targeted advertising, or more dynamic ads than you can do now on an iPhone,” Buchanan writes. “It’s also not crazy to think Apple’s way is going to be the only way to get some of those features, like location-based ads.”
Updated 12:30 p.m. PDT with a statement from Apple.
Photo: Fr3d.org/Flickr
