At WWDC earlier this week, Apple changed the wording on the iPhone developer program agreement, to a new agreement that essentially locks out companies that gather usage data from the platform. But, the wording is very specific, and seems to completely block Google and Adobe from being allowed to show ads on the platform.
Omar Hamoui, the founder of AdMob, an advertising agency that was recently purchased by Google said that "this change is not in the best interests of users or developers" and that "artificial barriers to competition hurts users and developers and in the long run, stalls technological progress". He went on to say that Google will be raising its concerns with the new rules with Apple.
Reuters reports that Admob disclosed that 1/3 of all ads served through their network are served on the iPhone platform. The new agreement would be a large hit to the company if they could not advertise anymore, and both the iPhone and iPad are affected.
The new agreement states that user data may only be transmitted by "an independent advertising service provider, whose primary business is serving mobile ads" and they must not be a "developer or distributer of mobile devices, mobile operating systems or development environments other than Apple". This explicitly excludes Google - due to the Android OS, and Adobe, due to it's Flash platform.
Apple's rival mobile ad platform, "iAd" is due to launch July 1 has already gathered $60 million in commitments for advertisements on mobile phones.
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