Publishers Are Still in a Stalemate with Apple

Today Peter Kafka, who is a journalist writing for MediaMemo blog, reported that publishers and Apple cannot still come to an agreement on subscriptions for iPad content in the App Store.  The reason is still the same - publishers want to provide personal data about subscribers to advertisers, while Apple doesn't want to do this.

However, Apple proposes an alternative to the publishers, notably an opt-in form which will allows subscribers to choose whether publications can get an access to a "limited amount of information", which includes user's name, e-mail and physical mailing address, or not.

Apple also wants to have 30% of all the transactions made through the App Store, which is the sharing plan that was used by the company before with regard to apps, Kafka reveals.

"The offer has been on the table for a 'couple months,' I'm told, and so far none of the big publishers have gone for it. They don't like the 30 percent cut Apple wants to take, but their real hang-up is the lack of access to credit card data: It's valuable to them for marketing, and without it they can't offer print/digital bundles, either."

Kafka says that eventually publishers started looking toward Android-based tablets to find better opportunities on that platform.

However, rumor has it there was a tablet-only daily publication already found, which is ready to collaborate with Apple. It is produced by News Corp. and called The Daily.  The publication will be formally announced this month (most probably at an event on December, 9).

Though Apple doesn't want to share personal information of readers for a pretty long time, the publishers cannot refuse this demand, as such data is very important and they rely on it to sell the advertisements and derive the maximum income from that.