This week, Apple rolled out new ad placements in the App Store for the Today tab and at the bottom of product pages of other apps. App Store ads are always a controversial (and widely disliked) subject, but this latest expansion was particularly grating to the developer community.
Developers were particularly fuming that many of the ads now being shown next to their apps in the ‘You Might Also Like’ were highly irrelevant, or ethically questionable, like seeing apps from gambling companies and casino-esque freemium games. In response to the complaints, via MacRumors, Apple has “paused ads related to gambling and a few other categories” from appearing on app product pages.
Any developer can bid and pay Apple for placement on App Store product pages, including optional targeting parameters. However, a developer cannot prevent an ad from appearing next to their app in the store. To be clear, developers do not see any upside; they do not get a cut of the revenue from these ads.
As shown in the example from the article header image, developer Simon B. Støvring voiced his frustrations that his professional text editing app Runestone was now accompanied by an ad for “Karamba Online Casino”.
This should not happen anymore now that Apple has said these ads are being filtered out from appearing. However, as the Apple statement specifically uses the word “paused” which implies this is only a temporary policy.
It’s unclear what the long-term path forward will be here. Apple has not said when or if it intends to surface gambling ads again in the App Store product page ads placements.
Obviously, developers would like Apple to backtrack on this altogether — but Apple’s ambitions for services revenue growth are squarely in opposition to that happening.
Beyond the App Store ads expansion, Apple is also rumored to be exploring adding sponsored search results to the Maps app, with a public launch expected next year. Apple’s ads division is said to be aiming to triple its revenue over time.
