Apple deleting in-app buy clause a welcome move: Digital start-ups
The Indian digital start-up ecosystem has
welcomed Apple's deleting a clause that prevented developers from contacting
users outside of in-app purchases.
On Saturday, Apple said it deleted
clause 3.1.3 that said: “Developers cannot use information obtained within the
app to target individual users outside of the app to use purchasing methods
other than in-app purchase (such as sending an individual user an email about
other purchasing methods, after that, individual signs up for an account
within the app).”
The All India Digital Foundation (ADIF), a think tank for digital start-ups in
India, called it an encouraging move, which it said was being used by Apple to maintain a
stronghold on the developers in order to make them cough up hefty commissions.
“This comes as a major victory for the developer and start-up community who
have been vocal against the restrictive and anti-competitive practices of the
two big firms through AppStore/PlayStore policies," said Sijo Kuruvilla
George, executive director, ADIF.
“Having said that, practices that restrict app developers with
their product and user experience choices still persist. For instance, Apple has still not
relented on allowing alternative payments systems to be embedded directly in
its apps. It is crucial now to ensure that the efforts towards making the app
economy a fair marketplace are sustained,” he said.
Google, which owns a majority of the operating system market in
India with its Android OS,
has also been at the receiving end of developers' ire. Its commissions have
been a contentious issue for a long time, and given Apple's deletion of the
clause, ADIF feels more work needs to be done by Google to address
developer concerns.
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