Revised language for section 3.3.9 of Apple’s developer agreement, concerning the use of data collection:
The collection, use or disclosure is for the purpose of serving advertising to Your Application; is provided to an independent advertising service provider whose primary business is serving mobile ads (for example, an advertising service provider owned by or affiliated with a developer or distributor of mobile devices, mobile operating systems or development environments other than Apple would not qualify as independent
Apple is stating that user data must be handled by organizations that are strictly independent. If the ad service provider is part of an organization that either competes with Apple’s devices or platform, it’s not independent.
AdMob would have been allowed to operate unhindered on iOS but AdMob as part of Google is not.
Conversely, if Google were to abandon Android, the path to riches would be open again. As shown several times already, by pursuing a mobile device platform Google strategically abandoned some significant revenue opportunities in exchange for some extraordinarily high costs.
Readers of this blog should not be surprised.