Apple has revised its terms and conditions for its App Store and a new addition has sparked some concern and confusion regarding third party promotion applications.
The change, clause 2.25, was highlighted Monday by Pocketgamer.biz. It reads:
Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected.
It appears to give Apple carte blanche to take down any app that promotes other apps. The clause itself is a bit vague because we don’t know what constitutes “confusing” promotion. Promoting applications like FreeAppADay, Chartboost or Tapjoy could be affected by the change. As of now there is no word of any apps being taken down via clause 2.25.
It’s understandable that Apple wants to restrict app promotion services to “maintain the legitimacy of the App Store charts” as one report suggests. It is also true that Apple has made some great strides recently to overhaul their app store for easy of searching and discoverability. Most notably are the new look the App Store received with the launch of iOS 6 last month and the acquisition of app search engine Chomp. Now while searching for options, downloads are shown in tiles rather than in a list.