Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s All Things D conference yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs discussed his company’s intentions with iAd in further detail, following increased regulatory scrutiny since the announcement was first made that Apple intends to ban third-party ad providers from apps on its mobile devices.
Jobs said Apple will not inhibit developers’ use of third-party ads in their applications, and that the update was mostly intended to “protect users’ privacy.” “We’re only going to allow analytics that don’t give device information, and that are solely for the purposes of advertising,” Jobs said. “In other words if a developer needs to put some analytics in their app that sends some information out to an advertiser so that they can make some money, they can do that. We’re not going to be the only advertiser. There’s others, and we’re not banning other advertisers from our platforms,” he continued.
This comes on the heels of the Federal Trade Commission publishing a statement referring specifically to Apple’s control of its developers’ license agreement, arguing it provides a “unique ability to define how competition among ad networks on the iPhone will occur and evolve.”
Though Jobs seems to be trying to satisfy other ad-networks, analytics providers and the feds, he’ll obviously continue with his original plans, even though it may not work out exactly like he had planned. This definitely isn’t over, and as iAd continues to gain steam, we’ll be hearing much more from around the mobile ecosystem.
