Apple stops gambling ads on developers’ complaints

Apple has reportedly paused advertisements related to gambling and a few other categories it believes to be ‘inappropriate’ on its App Store product pages after receiving complaints from developers on the type of advertisements showing up in the iPhone’s App Store.  

The iPhone-maker said that companies could advertise their apps on the store pages for other apps, putting their icon in the “you might also like” section. Almost immediately, developers started showing examples of ads for gambling apps being recommended under their apps. 

According to the company's guidelines for App Store advertising, there are restrictions on where apps related to gambling, drinking, dating, and the pharmaceutical and medical industries can be advertised. 

The site states that gambling applications are “prohibited or limited in some nations and regions”, but it says nothing about the audience they can be offered to, says the report. The restrictions are mostly related to regulations rather than what is tasteful or potentially damaging. 

How Apple tackles this issue could be vital for the future of the iPhone, believe experts. A report published on The Verge indicated that it’s planning on expanding ads outside the App Store, to apps like Maps, Podcasts, and Books. That’s because it said, “There are also examples of other betting apps being advertised on pages for apps aimed towards children, adult video chat apps showing up on the Apple Books page, and dating apps being placed under apps designed to improve existing relationships. 

Also, Apple has not clarified how long the pause would last, or if it’ll be making any policy changes based on how the initial rollout has gone down. It’s also unclear which other ad categories have been paused, noted a MacRumors report. 

Not just Apple, there are other companies too that have been working on this problem for some time now. Google, for example, lets users limit the number of ads you see about potentially sensitive topics like alcohol, gambling, dating, pregnancy, and weight loss. 

Microblogging site Twitter, which also has certain inappropriate ad placements, for example, one Twitter user shows a slot machine app being advertised alongside gambling addiction recovery apps, said that it is working towards improving many features on the platform.