iPhone developer license lets Apple kill apps at any time

Apple can "revoke the digital certificate of any of Your Applications at any time" according to the terms of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, a contract all developers must sign to distribute their software via the computing giant's App Store. Non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization the Electronic Frontier Foundation posted the most recent version of the Apple agreement, which it secured via the Freedom of Information Act following the release of the NASA App for iPhone--according to EFF, senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann, "the Agreement is a very one-sided contract, favoring Apple at every turn. That's not unusual where end-user license agreements are concerned (and not all the terms may ultimately be enforceable), but it's a bit of a surprise as applied to the more than 100,000 developers for the iPhone, including many large public companies."

Some of the key components of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement include:

• Section 8, which grants Apple the right to revoke a developer's digital certificate as it "has reason to believe that such action is prudent or necessary." Grounds for revocation include violating, misappropriating or infringing the rights of a third party or of Apple; releasing apps containing malicious or harmful code, malware, programs or other internal components like a software virus; or breaching any term or condition of the license agreement.

• Section 10.4, which prohibits developers--including government agencies--from making any "public statements" about the terms of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement.

• Section 7.2, which states that applications developed using Apple's SDK may only be publicly distributed through the App Store.

• Section 3.2(e), which prevents developers from building any Application or other program that would disable, hack or otherwise interfere with the Security Solution, or any security, digital signing, digital rights management, verification or authentication mechanisms implemented in or by the iPhone OS, this Apple Software, any services or other Apple software or technology, or enable others to do so." (Von Lohmann's interpretation: "Surprisingly, however, it appears to prohibit developers from tinkering with any Apple software or technology, not just the iPhone, or ‘enabling others to do so.' For example, this could mean that iPhone app developers are forbidden from making iPods interoperate with open source software.")

"How can Apple get away with it? Because it is the sole gateway to the more than 40 million iPhones that have been sold," von Lohmann writes. "In other words, it's only because Apple still ‘owns' the customer, long after each iPhone (and soon, iPad) is sold, that it is able to push these contractual terms on the entire universe of software developers for the platform. In short, no competition among app stores means no competition for the license terms that apply to iPhone developers."

For more on the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement:
- read this EFF blog entry

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