WSJ: Federal antitrust probe about Apple's iAd service, too

It's worth reading the relevant section. On the surface, at least, it's written in terms of end-user privacy. It's not clear whether iAd will play by the same rules.

3.3.9 The following requirements apply to You and Your Application’s use, collection, processing, maintenance, uploading, syncing, storage, transmission, sharing and disclosure of User Data:

- All use of User Data collected or obtained through an Application must be limited to the same purpose as necessary to provide services or functionality for such Application. For example, the use of User Data collected on and used in a social networking Application could be used for the same purpose on the website version of that Application; however, the use of location-based User Data for enabling targeted advertising in an Application is prohibited unless targeted advertising is the purpose of such Application (e.g., a geo-location coupon application).

- You may only provide or disclose User Data to third parties as necessary for providing services or functionality for the Application that collected the User Data, and then only if You receive express user consent. For example, if Your Application would like to post a message from a user to a third party social networking site, then You may only share the message if the user has explicitly indicated an intention to share it by clicking or selecting a button or checking a box that clearly explains how the message will be shared.

- Notwithstanding anything else in this Agreement, Device Data may not be provided or disclosed to a third party without Apple’s prior written consent. Accordingly, the use of third party software in Your Application to collect and send Device Data to a third party for processing or analysis is expressly prohibited.

- You must provide information to users regarding Your use and/or Transmission of User Data and explain how Your Application will use User Data, e.g., by providing information in the App Store marketing text that accompanies Your Application on the App Store, by adding an About box within Your Application, or by adding a link to Your privacy policy on Your website.

- You and the Application must take appropriate steps to protect any User Data from unauthorized disclosure or access. If a user ceases to consent to Your use and/or Transmission of User Data, You must promptly cease all such use and/or Transmission and destroy any such information from Your records (except to the limited extent necessary for Your Application back-ups and record-keeping or as otherwise prohibited by law).

To me, this has more potential to be trouble to Apple than 3.3.1. Saying "you can only put ads on our devices if you buy them from us" is practically the definition of tying.

Sure, will be interesting to see how Reality-Distortion-Field [tm] works in court :P