EFF Blasts Apple For 'Troubling' iPhone Developer Agreement

That's according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which on Tuesday published a version of Apple's iPhone Developer License Agreement dated January 2010. According to the EFF, it obtained the iPhone agreement from NASA through the Freedom of Information Act.

Apple's iPhone app developer program has been subject to much scrutiny, including from the EFF, suggesting that the ways Apple seeks to protect its apps and intellectual property leave developers with little in the way of rights or recourse once their apps are accepted.

"Though more than 100,000 app developers have clicked 'I agree,' public copies of the agreement are scarce, perhaps thanks to the prohibition of making any 'public statements regarding this Agreement, its terms or conditions, or the relationship of the parties without Apple's express written approval,'" wrote EFF staff attorney Fred Von Lohmann in a post to the EFF site, quoting from the Apple legalese.

Von Lohmann then highlights specific areas of the iPhone Developer License Agreement he described as "troubling." Chief among them, Von Lohmann notes, is that Apple prohibits "public statements" about the agreement itself -- strange, he said, because the "Agreement itself is not 'Apple Confidential Information' as defined in Section 10.1"

Other concerns described by the EFF include requirements that applications using the Apple SDK may only be distributed through the App Store, Apple's ban on reverse engineering, the no-jailbreaking of iPhone or any Apple products (a position that the EFF has criticized Apple for in the past), the fact that Apple can "revoke the digital certificate of any of Your Applications at any time," and that Apple, no matter what the case, won't be liable to developers for more than $50 in damages.

Von Lohmann acknowledges that Apple's terms, while "one-sided" and "favoring Apple at every turn," are also "not unusual where end-user license agreements are concerned." He goes on to say that it's surprising Apple can be so strict, however, given the explosion of interest in the App Store and the fact that many iPhone developers are large public companies. Apple, von Lohmann argues, is limiting the very market is seeks to innovate.

"It's frustrating to see Apple, the original pioneer in generative computing, putting shackles on the market it (for now) leads," he wrote. "If Apple wants to be a real leader, it should be fostering innovation and competition, rather than acting as a jealous and arbitrary feudal lord. Developers should demand better terms and customers who love their iPhones should back them."

Is the EFF's analysis a fine-tuned attack or sour grapes directed at Apple's penchant for secrecy? Apple isn't breaking any laws, and while it does much to protect the strict agreements set forth in its iPhone Developer License Agreement, that strictness hasn't exactly prevented an explosion of interest in iPhone apps or the popularity of the App Store. In January Apple said more than 3 billion apps had been downloaded to iPhone and iPod Touch devices from the Apple App Store.

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