Apple’s latest Program License Agreement for iOS contains an interesting clause on data collection for the purposes of advertising – with user consent, collecting certain bits of data are permitted, as long as they’re sent to
an independent advertising service provider whose primary business is serving mobile ads (for example, an advertising service provider owned by or affiliated with a developer or distributor of mobile devices, mobile operating systems or development environments other than Apple would not qualify as independent)
This has been widely interpreted as an anti-Google clause. However, it has wider consequences.
Data collection is a requirement of advertising – it’s mighty hard to run an ad network without tracking clicks on your ad units. Because of this, any iOS-based advertising service will have little value to any acquirer whose primary business isn’t ‘serving mobile ads’ – since Apple could enforce its license agreement and shut the service off at any moment. Participating in the iOS ecosystem therefore comes with an involuntary poison pill – any acquisition (and corresponding loss of independence) makes the acquired asset inherently less valuable.
This new language makes the iOS platform less attractive to venture capitalists – less potential acquirers for a company equals less acquisitions at lower valuations. This lack-of-attractiveness won’t just be confined to advertising-related startups – for all startups raising money, ‘Apple changing the terms of service to make us less valuable’ is now a substantial risk factor. I therefore expect less venture capital to go to the platform in the future. Which is a problem for startups – but it’s also a problem for Apple. For ecosystems like iOS, venture capital is free research & development, outsourced innovation. Less of this on iOS will gradually make their ecosystem weaker – and in what’s shaping up to be a long war with Google, that’ll end up being a lot more significant than depriving Google of a few advertising dollars.
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