I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. In fact I was going to mention in this morning’s post that Apple’s just asking for the FTC to come take a look. They have taken the stick out of Flurry’s hands and are now swinging it at the beehive that is the U.S. Federal Government.

While Flurry definitely made a serious error by pissing off Steve Jobs, Apple doesn’t want to go and do the same with the bigger kids on the block.

Federal antitrust regulators reportedly plan to investigate whether Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) fledgling iAd mobile advertising network unfairly restricts rivals like Google from extending their own mobile marketing efforts across the iPhone platform. Citing sources familiar with the probe, The Financial Times reports the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice are presently in talks to determine which unit will spearhead an investigation into Apple’s mobile ad initiatives in the wake of the computing giant’s decision to rewrite its iPhone Developer Program License Agreement to effectively block third-party analytics firms from collecting iPhone application user or device data to improve ad targeting.

Apple has now pissed of AdMob, which we all know is now owned by Google, a much bigger, and badder,  boy on the block. And as a business, the only one scarier than the FTC, is the IRS!

The developer license update is widely perceived as an attempt to stymie mobile advertising network AdMob, acquired by Apple’s archrival Google for $750 million following an FTC antitrust investigation into the deal. "This change threatens to decrease–or even eliminate–revenue that helps to support tens of thousands of developers," wrote AdMob founder Omar Hamoui on the firm’s blog Wednesday. "The terms hurt both large and small developers by severely limiting their choice of how best to make money.  And because advertising funds a huge number of free and low cost apps, these terms are bad for consumers as well." Hamoui added AdMob plans to speak to Apple "to express our concerns about the impact of these terms."

So bring it on. Us little guys will let the big guys fight it out and see who is left standing.  Since the release of the iPhone, Apple has been pushing the “antitrust” envelope. Everywhere from the proprietary iTunes store, to the AT&T only network, to the ban on analytics, Apple has been seeing how far they can take it.

So, “Let’s get ready to rumble……”

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 10th, 2010 at 4:07 pm and is filed under News, Mobile Analytics, iPhone Analytics, iPad Analytics, iPad. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.