Apple boots Financial Times from app store

Last Updated on Thursday, 01 September 2011 11:54 Thursday, 01 September 2011 11:45

Apple has kicked the Financial Times of London from its iTunes App Store following the newspaper's refusal to sign up for new app rules. The dispute centres around Apple's insistence that publishers do not include links to external sites offering 'buy now' options. Apple instead wants publishers to use an in-app subscription mechanism that would process purchases through Apple. Many see the new rules as overly restrictive and greedy with Apple taking a 30 per cent cut on all 'buy now' options presented to users. That rule was modified by Apple after an outcry from developers with the new rule stating that while approved content could be shown, developers had to remove buy now links to external websites from the apps.

The Financial Times sidestepped the new rule by urging users to visit the website directly and then avail of a buy-now option. That new 'generic' app has over 555,000 users so far. The Financial Times say it's bone of contention is'nt solely about the money side of things but over who owns the data collected on customers. It wanted sole ownership of the data while Apple's model would see it collect data on consumers.

Mining customers for data is big business. Facebook, Google, Apple are all heavily involved in collating data about user actions and using it to sell directed advertising back to the end user. There are substantial privacy concerns over who accesses the data, how long it is stored for and how identifiable the end user is to third parties paying the likes of Facebook for the data. Whether big technology companies have the right to sell your data to third parties for use in advertising is a moot point - if you don't want that happening, don't use their sites.

Apple faces an added dimension in its battle to retain ownership of the data in the guise of HTML5. Many app publishers are instead coding their apps to run on any device capable of HTML5 while Apple has rigidly stuck to insisting on native iOS apps. Apple's spat with Adobe over its flash programming code has further cast Apple in the light of selfish, greedy guts.

Apple users can still access the Financial Times content, but only via the FT's own app and not through the iTunes app store. The Financial Times also imposed a pay-wall on its content last year and 27 per cent of its revenues are now from digital advertising and user subscriptions.

Apple will be keenly watching if other newspapers and publishers follow suit. With the FT's farewell, a market of 2.1 million FT users has been lost, many of whom would be prime users of Apple products. Think financial suits on iPhones in the morning and iPads at home in the evening. If FT's generic app works just as well (and there's no reason to assume it won't), other publishers will follow its lead. For Apple, insisting on owning user data and 30 per cent of subscription sales may be a small bite it will have to give back.