Apple censors author based on content

[wraith808]

Not porn.  Nor anything like that.  But because in one of the chapters, they mention using Amazon to do a search for titles in order to find appropriate genres for their submissions.

Apple Made Its Decision. My Turn

Holly Lisle, a writer of fiction and help novels for writers created a new novel, How To Think Sideways.  They had a problem with one of the chapters- it had to do with links to Amazon.  So she resubmitted, taking out the links, and now it has to do with content that mentions Amazon.

We had a discussion on DC before about the precedent of letting distributors determine what content was suitable to be distributed, and I had an idea that even though it was porn at the time, that approach seemed fraught with danger... and now that danger has arrived.

She makes the level headed and rational point that this isn't really censorship, as only the government can censor.  But, for all intents and purposes, it's not very far from that point, IMO.

[mahesh2k]

More like competitor jacking?

[tomos]

Whatever it gets called,
it's unacceptable behaviour...

[40hz]

The above ties in very neatly with a post from Marco Arment on his blog site entitled: The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance. (excerpts follow-emphasis added). Link to full article here.

The Mac App Store’s future of irrelevance

Postbox’s exit from the Mac App Store should sound very familiar to anyone who buys Mac software. If you read between the lines a bit, I think the real story there is one we’ve seen a lot since June 1: they tolerated the App Store’s lack of paid upgrade mechanics before, but sandboxing — and more accurately, needing to remove important app features because of their incompatibility with the current set of sandboxing entitlements — was the last straw.

How many good apps will be pulled from the App Store before Apple cares?

The problem with sandboxing isn’t that any particular app is incompatible with the current entitlements. It’s a deeper problem than that: Apple is significantly reducing the number of apps that can be sold in the Store after people have already bought them.

Apple’s stance seems to be pretty typical of them: comply with the new rules or leave. This usually works for them, but this time, they’ve made a critical strategic error: leaving is often a better option, or the only option, for the affected developers. Many of them have already left, and many more will.
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Next time I buy an app that’s available both in and out of the Store, I’ll probably choose to buy it directly from the vendor.

And nearly everyone who’s been burned by sandboxing exclusions — not just the affected apps’ developers, but all of their customers — will make the same choice with their future purchases. To most of these customers, the App Store is no longer a reliable place to buy software.
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The Mac App Store is in significant danger of becoming an irrelevant, low-traffic flea market where buyers rarely venture for serious purchases. And I bet that’s not what Apple had in mind at all.

With thx to OSNews for spotting this.