Apple Credit Card Secrecy Driving Magazine Publishers Away

Apple's iOS subscription plans for digital magazines are neither new nor likely to lead to any iPad e-magazine content in the near future, according to All Things D's sources, with publishers apparently taking issue with Apple's refusal to share credit card and billing information. The promise of subscriptions has supposedly been "on the table" for "a couple months", with Apple offering publishers 70-percent of sales revenue and "an opt-in form for subscribers that would ask them for a limited amount of information: Name, mailing address, email address."

That's not enough for the publishers, however, who want access to the credit card information that subscribers provide. That would allow them to better target their marketing, as well as to offer print/digital bundles to sweeten the deal.

In response, publishers are looking to Google tablets or refusing to opt exclusively for iOS devices like the iPad, instead either selling issues as individual apps – as with Newsweek – or giving away the digital version – as with People magazine – to any print subscriber. Meanwhile News Corp's "Daily" now isn't expected to launch until Q1 2011.