Eliot Van Buskirk on the Apple/Google Mobile Ad Feud

Great piece by Eliot Van Buskirk:

This leaves Google out in the cold, and seems to strike a big blow against competition in the mobile ad space. It also smacks of payback, because Google swooped in to buy AdMob when Apple was just about to purchase it.

But think about the alternative. If Apple allows Google to track user data within ads, Google can see how people interact with advertising elements within iOS apps. And it would be able to use that information to inform the process of building AdMob ads into its own Android platform.

There’s a growing consensus here at WWDC that this is a big part of the reasoning behind Apple’s stiff-arm to Google. The terms don’t block Google from serving mobile ads in iOS, they just block Google from collecting analytics, and but so Google is effectively blocked from selling mobile ads on iOS because their whole ad system is all about analytics. They don’t do brand advertising.

There’s also no reason to put it in the future tense, that Google “would be able to use that information to inform the process of building AdMob ads into its own Android platform.” Does anyone believe that Google isn’t doing this already?

★ Thursday, 10 June 2010