Apple developer agreement terms slammed by digital rights group
Electronic Frontier Foundation labels âoutrageousâ iOS app terms as âbad for developers and users alikeâ
Digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has slammed the terms within Appleâs developer agreement and labelled them âoutrageousâ.
In a statement released yesterday, EFF intellectual property director Corynne McSherry said the organisation had to shelve plans to release an app for iPhone users informing them of their digital rights owing to a problem agreeing with the technology firmâs terms and conditions.
âAs we have been saying for years now, the Developer Agreement is bad for developers and users alike,â she said.
The organisation said it was particularly concerned by Appleâs rights to âkillâ an app at any time for any reason, an insistence that all apps developed using Appleâs SDK can only be released via the App Store and that any security fixes to individual apps need be verified by Apple before being released.
It also criticised Appleâs Digital Rights Management policy which enforces restrictions on how an app can be operated and called upon mobile developers to demand better terms from the tech firm.
âLots of developers hold their nose and sign the agreement despite these onerous conditions. The Apple App Store is a huge market and hard to ignore if you want your business to succeed,â McSherry added.
In November Apple reversed a decision made in September to ban affiliate apps from offering in-app betting services after interpreting its terms and conditions to mean that any affiliate doing so would require its own licence from the UK Gambling Commission.
Affiliates successfully argued that all betting services were conducted by licensed operators, and Apple subsequently began to allow in-app betting functionality.