Digital-publishing-technology provider NewspaperDirect railed against Apple’s subscription policy for content-based apps via its App Store, and the company also announced that ASUS will use its technology to offer newspaper content across its line of digital platforms.
In a statement on The PressDisplay Blog, NewspaperDirect said:
It is unjustifiable for a hardware-device manufacturer to charge 30 percent on a transaction that costs them less than 5 percent to perform.
It is inexcusable to force publishers to comply with a manufacturer’s tiered subscription levels under that manufacturer’s terms and conditions not just on its own iOS devices, but on whatever platform the publisher supports under their subscription plan (e.g. Android or BlackBerry, or even PCs).
Apple’s personal data policy is completely self-serving, helping neither publishers nor their subscribers.
Offering opt-in choices for subscribers to share their personal data with publishers is fine for single copy sales, but when a user specifically subscribes to a publisher’s content, the publisher should have access to the personal data of its subscribers. These are not Apple subscribers; these are the publisher’s subscribers.
In a world where personalization is becoming more and more important, publishers must be able to tailor content to the preferences of their subscribers. Under Apple’s policy, this will not be possible.
And what is even worse is that publishers will not be able to count these subscribers in their audited circulation. Ridiculous!
