Is New App Store Rule Aimed at Killing AdMob?

Ed Sutherland ()

Is New App Store Rule Aimed at Killing AdMob?

Just days after Apple asked an iPhone app developer to remove references to Google’s Android Marketplace, the Cupertino, Calif. company is advising location-aware applications can’t simply help Google’s AdMob serve location-based advertising.

“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,” Apple warns.

Apple’s comments come as the company and Google increasingly butt-heads on numerous fronts, the latest being who will control the burgeoning market for mobile advertising. In November, Google acquired AdMob for $750 million, snatching the mobile advertising firm while Apple was negotiating to buy the company. Stung, Apple turned around and paid $275 million for Quattro, AdMob’s chief rival. Just this week an Apple patent was reported, allowing iPhone users to share their current location, a potential precursor to employing the Apple handset as a platform for location-based ads.

The current battle for startups in the mobile arena is likely to heat-up as Apple looks for ways to invest $23 billion in cash. “As mobile computing takes shape, Apple, Google, Nokia and other traditional tech titans have become more active in searching for startups that can help them with the new terrain,” BusinessWeek writes.
Another signal of the growing importance of mobile advertising for Apple was news the company recently hired a former Microsoft mobile advertising sales manager, Theo Theodorou, and Todd Tran, formerly of the mobile ad agency Joule.

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[Via 9to5Mac and AppleInsider]

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About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • http://ihbs.co.uk Ben

    good. im sick of admob adverts. most of them advertising apps that i already have

  • Herman

    All this petty fighting over money, in which we, the customers, will eventually end up losing. This protectionist behavior could (and should) get them into trouble with some trade commissions.

  • Tom

    Microsoft was forced by the government to “open up” its web browser hooks so other companies could be competitive in the internet browser field. How is apple say no to Google AdMobs any different? isn’t it trying to monopolize and control what apps are run on it’s OS?
    I remember the Apple ad of the people breaking free of the gloomy monopoly (Microsoft) and Apple was a fresh outlet.

  • http://www.nooksurfer.com NookSurfer

    I’m interested to see how this thing will pan out and what Apple plans to do.

  • flunkycarter

    You’re all bitchin about not getting targeted ads? By that stance, the advert companies the trade commission should come a knockin’ on your doors when you disable cookies, preventing ad companies from tracking you, and delivering better ads.

    you’re all a bunch of whiney skank rag moolies if you ask me, and if you didn’t ask, well shove it you skumps.

  • Montana Bob

    AdMob is now a rival advertising company, which only exists to earn revenue and profits for its Mother Company (which is Google).

    So it makes sense that AdMob should not be allowed to rear its ugly ads on the iPhone. In fact, I will make a simple suggestion to everyone: go into your web browser and put a manual BLOCK on all popups and cookies from the domain admob.com

  • Darren

    The ad firm that Apple recently acquired – Quattro wireless – does the location based ads thing too, so it seems unlikely that this is ‘targeting’ anyone. It’s far more likely that apple fields and listens to the complaints of users about the constant location popups for simple ad serving. It needs to stop, and apple is stopping it.

  • http://www.spongeinside.nl Sponge

    They still don’t get it.. I, and many many others with me, don’t want any of those f’ing add while using an app! The screen is mostly hardly big enough for the app itself… then they start putting ads in it aswell so it crowds up the screen even more! In-app advertising should be banned!

  • Montana Bob

    My take: if you paid good money for an app, it better not have ads in it. Or else they better give me back a refund.

    If you paid nothing for the app (it was free), then you have no right to talk. You got what you paid for.

  • Pete Mortensen

    I’m confused — would this preclude FourSquare from alerting me to specials nearby? I actually appreciate it.