Apple may be in hot water with the feds after a controversial change to its developer policy.
The Financial Times is reporting that antitrust authorities at the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are mulling a probe into Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) new rules that restrict rivals’ abilities to sell ads against third-party applications on the iPhone and iPad.
Under the new policy, announced Monday, Apple is barring developers from sending information about the people using their apps to the ad networks of companies that make smartphones or mobile operating systems.
That means that Apple rivals like Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) would not be able to access the demographic and location data that is so integral to the nascent mobile ad business.